His eyes wouldn't meet mine. 'I've got it back home.'
'Don't lie to me, John. I've just seen Dad. He told me you've been round begging him for a loan.' My jaw was aching from clenching my teeth. 'He just gave me a load of grief about how I should help you out. Again.'
John shook his head.
'Don't tell me you've gone and blown it?' I said.
Shame made his cheeks burn. 'I got an inside tip,' he said. 'Fiveto-one odds, what could I do?'
'Oh, for God's sake—'
I turned away from him.
John's fist thumped into my shoulder. Turning slowly, I saw my little brother setting himself up.
'Don't you dare,' I warned him. 'I don't care who you are, I'll punch your face in.'
'Come on, then,' he said. 'Why don't you do it, huh? Every other tough guy around here wants to.'
I almost did. But right then he was just too pathetic to waste my time on. Staring him down, I backed away. Lifting a finger, I aimed it at his face. 'You're not worth it, John. I'm done with you. You got that?'
Pushing my way through the crowd of onlookers, I heard him call out, 'I don't need you, Joe. You're done with me, are you? Well, to hell with you! You mean nothin' to me, either. You're not even my real brother. Just some sad
Our eyes met over the shoulders of the drinkers that made a wall between us.
'I'm not your real brother?' I asked. 'Fair enough. If that's what you want, John.'
The light of anger went out of his eyes and he turned away. I turned away, too. Didn't look back.
They were angry words on both sides.
Despite them, John would always be my little brother.
We didn't get a chance to make amends.
The time had come to put things right again.
As a soldier, I hunted and killed men. That's what soldiers do. But with me the killing was up close and personal. It does something to you when you have to look into the eyes of those you kill. Violence breeds a sickness of the human spirit. Hatred consumes and gives birth to self-loathing. It doesn't matter that the deaths were sanctioned, just, or righteous. It's still death. Fourteen years spent tracking terrorists left me changed forever.
Maybe that's why I turned my back on my brother. If I'd stepped up to the mark then, maybe John wouldn't have run away.
I took my leave of the forces, determined that I'd settle down with Diane, lead a life of normalcy and peace.
I should've known I was pissing in the wind.
In some respects, John made me what I am. I dealt with his debts in the only way I knew how: I backed down his debtors. On the streets, that gave me a certain reputation. It wasn't long before my natural ability pushed my other, gentler attributes aside. Subtly, what began as a foray into private security consultancy changed into clients who demanded more. Occasionally I had to crack skulls and bloody noses. For fourteen years I'd met violence head-on with even more violence, and now it seemed that for all my good intentions, nothing had changed.
In another world I could've ended up as a hit man like those
I'd waged war against, or as muscle for some lowlife gangster. Only because I had morals and—yes— compassion could I find any peace at all. Without my sense of decency, I'd be nothing more than a bigger thug amid all the little thugs.
I promised Jennifer I'd find my brother.
Nothing was going to stand in my way.
9
yesterday morning, tubal cain's rage had been epic. Little wonder. First, he'd lost his SUV, stranding him out on the highway like road kill left to dry in the increasing heat. Then, he'd realized that the unscrupulous bastard who had abandoned him had also stolen his second-favorite knife. Next, he'd discovered that his penny loafers were no good for walking any distance.
But as the saying goes, that was then and this is now. Almost twenty-four hours later, Cain was feeling rather pleased with himself.
For one, he was lying on a soft bed, wiggling his hot feet in the draft from a wall-mounted AC unit. Freshly showered and wearing clothes that weren't sticky with perspiration, he was a new man. Beside him on the bed was the quiet, still form of the Good Samaritan who'd brought him to this place.
She was dead, of course, not sleeping peacefully as her pose would suggest. Her hair was spread across the pillows like a sheaf of spilled corn, hiding her slack features. Deliberate posing so that her unnatural pallor wouldn't give the game away.
'Now, I'd appreciate it if you'd just lie there like a good girl,' he said. 'Like you're sleeping off the effects of a heavy party. It was a good party, believe me, and you certainly deserve a nap.'
Cain prided himself on his expertise at covering his tracks. That was why he remained America's most prolific undetected serial murderer. Take George and Mabel, for instance: He'd rigged the explosion so that both of them would be so charred it would take a determined investigator to guess that they'd been murdered. Essentially, Mabel hadn't been too careful with the gas cooker when preparing their supper. Either the explosion or the subsequent fire would cover the fact that George was missing a couple of digits, while his wife had suffered numerous breaks to her limbs.
