She dropped her purse on the floor, then the garment bag. Her arms at her sides, her hands clenched into fists.
“Mommy, I’m sorry, really, I’m sorry,” Kendra said, her voice high and quavering.
Anna’s suddenly red cheeks trembled as her eyes bulged.
“Kendra,” Reznick said as he pulled his T-shirt over his head, “why don’t you take Conan and Dexter outside. They haven’t been out in awhile, and they probably need to do some business.”
“But Mommy, I don’t want to – “
”Kendra,” he said again. “Go ahead and take the dogs out. Your mommy and I need to talk.”
Kendra’s head turned back and forth between them, her mouth open. Finally, she called the dogs and slapped her thigh and made kissing noises with her lips, and they followed her out the door.
Monty Rudd drove the Lexus around the loop that encircled the barn-red house, then stopped his car in front of trailer number seventeen. He reached into the pocket of his short-sleeve burgundy shirt and unfolded the small piece of paper, switched on the overhead light, and sure enough, it was number seventeen. He put the slip of paper back in his pocket and killed the light, then the engine.
He got out of the car. The hot wind whipped at him and was noisy in the trees overhead making dry, harsh sounds. He wore black gloves and grey pants and black shoes. He was fifty-one, a pudgy man of medium height with a balding head of grey-shot brown hair. He leaned in and took his gun from the passenger seat. A Glock.45 equipped with a silencer. He racked the gun before closing the car door.
Rudd went around the car to the front steps of the trailer.
He could smell the meth lab. He’d been told it was a possibility. It was an unfortunate factor. The smell was foul.
Rudd silently climbed the steps. He opened the screen door, then simply opened the front door. It was unlocked, as they usually were. People were so stupid.
He stepped into the trailer.
Movement to the left.
He saw two young women sitting at a bar just to the left of the door. The one with dark hair had her back to him. The dishwater-blonde faced him. He shot her first. The gun made a thick, muted
He shot the brunette in the back of the head before she had a chance to turn around –
Rudd took a clean white handkerchief from his back pocket and held it over his nose and mouth.
“What’s going on out there?” called a male voice from down the hall.
Rudd headed down the hall toward the voice, his gun held ready before him.
Anna stood there staring at him, eyes wide beneath a frowning brow, head tipped forward. She tucked in her lower lip in and ran the tip of her tongue back and forth over it.
“You look angry, Anna,” Reznick said. “You need to calm down.”
“You… you’re telling me… to calm
“That’s right.” He walked slowly to the kitchen with his glass. The ice had melted in what was left of his vodka and it had become watery. He went to the sink and dumped it, then to the refrigerator, where he opened the freezer. He got more ice, then took out the bottle. He put the glass on the kitchen table. As he poured his drink, he said, “I told you that you owed me, and that I would collect. Well. I’m collecting.”
She released an abrupt laugh as cold as a deadly-sharp icicle. “You’re
“You’re little girl came to
“I thought we talked about that,” Anna said. She stood just a couple feet away holding a steak knife with a narrow, serrated blade.
Rudd was halfway down the hallway when a tall young man with curly, shaggy dark hair stepped out of an open doorway. He wore a white surgical mask. His eyebrows popped up.
Rudd raised the gun, but the instant he fired, the young man ducked back into the doorway.
Knowing he didn’t have much time, Rudd hurried forward down the narrow hall. Arms outstretched, elbows locked, right hand resting in his left palm, he turned sharply to the right and entered the room.
The young man spun away from an open closet with a sawed-off shotgun and took two steps toward him.
All at once:
Rudd squeezed off a shot. The young man’s left shoulder exploded in a spray of red, spinning him around and turning the shotgun toward Rudd.
Rudd fired again, and a red hole appeared in the young man’s pale blue T-shirt, just below his chest.
At the moment that the young man fired the shotgun, Rudd got one more shot off. Rudd’s shot took off half the young man’s head. The shotgun nearly cut Rudd in half and he was thrown backward into the hall.
When Andy fell back, he landed on a structure of glass tubes and bottles
There was a great ripping explosion.
A gout of flames and debris burst upward from the trailer.
The flames rose up and flared in the wind, and reached the dry, sweeping branches of the trees overhead.
“You want to think a minute, Anna,” Reznick said as he picked up his drink. He took a couple swallows, them smacked his lips. “Your little girl isn’t so little after all. She was hungry for it. And keep something in mind. I know something about you. Actually, I know a couple things.”
“A couple things, huh,” she whispered, glaring at him.
“First of all, I know you brutally murdered a man, and I could ruin you with a phone call. I’m pretty well covered, it would be your word against mine. Also, maybe it’s about time somebody told your little girl what Mommy does at night. That she takes her clothes off for lonely, horny, drunken men. That maybe she does more than just take her – ”
“How do you – how
Reznick took another drink.
Anna attacked him with the knife.
He dropped the drink and raised an arm. The glass shattered on the floor and vodka splashed over his feet.
The knife sliced through the flesh of his forearm.
He grabbed her right wrist with his left hand, then with his right hand, he tried to pry the knife from her fingers.
She swung her knee up and slammed it into his crotch.
He doubled over with a grunt and she stabbed him in the neck.
That was when the explosion occurred, but Reznick was in too much pain to notice, and Anna’s ears were ringing too loudly.
