Seldom Seen in August

than he, was a mystery that immediately seemed less of one when he reminded himself that children lived here. Not without difficulty, he shoved it aside and thought that maybe he’d rob it after all, just because it had inconvenienced him. Besides, it would do the kid who owned it good to learn a hard lesson about life early on, so maybe the shit that lay ahead of them wouldn’t be nearly so surprising.

He stood, turned, and flipped the switch on the wall behind him. The landing flooded with stark white light from another unshaded bulb and he raised a hand to shield his eyes. Spastic shadows slipped under the three doors on the second floor and down the stairs as he blinked ghostly orbs from his eyes.

Nice house like this, he thought. No shades. Fucking weird.

He took a step and put a hand on the nearest door. It swung easily open revealing a cramped, unremarkable bathroom that seemed unsuitable for anything but a bachelor who didn’t mind getting piss in the sink. The shower curtain was spotted with mildew and pulled back to reveal a bathtub with a pink slip-proof mat, a drain clotted with long dark hairs, and a decidedly unhappy looking rubber duck. Time and multiple saturations had erased the pupil of one eye, leaving it with a cataract, while the other stared myopically upward as if questioning the injustice of it all. Wade grinned and turned away.

In the absence of any ambient sound, the sudden vibration against his right thigh made him jump and he scowled, embarrassed and glad as hell that no one had seen his reaction. From the pocket of his jeans he withdrew a slim silver cell phone. It hummed faintly as he checked the display.

“About goddamn time,” he muttered, and though he wouldn’t have admitted it under duress, he was relieved to see his partner’s name on the phone’s readout. It meant two things: Cartwright was alive, and he was loyal enough to keep in touch. The opposite in either case would have meant a whole lot of money lost to the wind.

Beneath Cartwright’s name was a flashing envelope icon. It was not a call but a text message. One of the last things Ward had barked at Cartwright had been “no calls, you hear me? I don’t want to be hiding up a goddamn tree and have the cops find me by following my Mission Impossible ring tone.” And he was glad he’d imparted that little caveat, for while there were no cops breathing down his neck at the moment, he still didn’t know for sure that there wasn’t someone hiding in one of the other two rooms. Turning the phone off hadn’t been an option either. He needed to regroup with Cartwright once the heat died down a little, and the sooner he knew the score, the better. If I don’t hear from you by sundown, he’d told his partner, I’m going to assume one of two scenarios: (a) you got caught, or (b) you got greedy and decided to split with the money. If the latter happens, I won’t come after you, because I probably wouldn’t know where to start looking. That’s just me being honest. So you’ll probably get away with it. I won’t dog you. Instead I’ll visit your family and you can see what I’ve done to them on the main evening news from whatever hole you’re hiding in, got it?

And apparently, Cartwright had.

Wade pressed the green phone symbol and the text message spread across the screen:

SRRY. FUCT UP

Wade bit down on his lower lip, his breath whistling through his nose. What the hell did that mean? Sorry, I fucked up. Was he referring to his little rampage at the bank despite Wade telling him only to shoot if someone got brave? Or was this some new turn of events? Had he lost the money?

Aggravated, he quickly hit REPLY and thumbed the buttons until he had typed:

FUCT UP HOW???

He hit SEND and cursed a little too loudly. He ran his free hand through his hair and caught a whiff of himself. The odor was rank, unpleasant, like sour cream, an unnecessary reminder that he needed to take a shower. And he would, but not here. He was relatively fearless, but not enough to totally disregard common sense by taking a soak in the house he’d broken into.

Agitated and eyeing the phone in the hope that he wouldn’t have to wait long for the response, he pushed away from the wall. “C’mon, c’mon,” he whispered urgently, willing Cartwright to respond. If it turned out the money was gone, Wade figured he might as well come out with his hands up. His share of the takings wouldn’t be nearly enough to pay back the men who were out to break his legs, but it would keep them off his back for a while. Without it, he was as good as dead. And if they didn’t get to him first, the cops surely would. But if he settled some of his debt, he still ended up with nothing, which was why Wade planned to kill Cartwright and take his share. It would be just enough to finance his relocation somewhere south of the border. It was a cliche, sure, but one that held endless appeal. He liked the sun, he liked Mexican food, and he liked dark women. Where was the catch?

So intent was he on the phone’s display that it took him a moment longer than it should have to sense that there was someone standing behind him. Hair standing on end, body braced for the feel of slugs punching into his flesh, he turned, fumbled for the gun, but by the time he had it withdrawn, cocked and aimed at where the— what?—had been standing only a split-second before, it had vanished into the bathroom, slamming the door shut so hard behind it that for a moment Wade thought he’d pulled the trigger.

“Jesus H,” Wade murmured, his heart thundering. For a moment he stood there, vacillating, unsure what to do next. Only when he carefully walked himself through what he’d just seen did he realize how convinced he’d been that there had been nobody in the house with him. And perhaps he hadn’t been entirely wrong. After all, he couldn’t be certain that whoever had scurried into the bathroom hadn’t just come home. Wade hadn’t heard a car, or a door, but that didn’t mean squat.

No, he told himself. No… they were here all along.

His hackles rose, his senses on full alert now. He had let himself get complacent after the exhaustion of the chase, and that was an amateurish mistake to make, one that might have been his last.

Swallowing a lump the momentary shock had lodged in his throat, he pocketed his cell phone and took a step closer to the bathroom door.

It was a kid, he thought. A teenager maybe.

Not that it mattered a damn. He had no interest in taking hostages, only lives, especially those that intersected with his in ways in which he didn’t approve.

Slowly, he dropped to one knee and brought his face close to the latch panel, his eye to the keyhole. He squinted, caught a glimpse of a bare chest rapidly rising and falling, the acne-flushed cusp of a chin. It was a boy, probably no more than fifteen or sixteen, sitting on the toilet, terrified.

Wade exhaled explosively, his knees cracking as he stood up.

“Hey,” he said evenly. “Hey kid, come on out.”

There was no answer, but he fancied he could now hear the faint hush-whisper of the boy’s breathing as it quickened in panic.

“There’s nowhere you can go. You understand that, right?” Wade said into the door. “You’re stuck in there and I’m out here with a gun. What’re your options?”

He waited a few moments, but the kid didn’t answer.

“How about I give you three seconds to open the door, huh? One way or another, this hide-and-seek game’s gonna end, but it’d be easier on us both if you just came on out of there on your own. One…”

Despite what many people had said over the past twenty years, Wade would get no pleasure at all from what he was about to do.

“Two…”

But that didn’t alter the inescapable reality of the fact that it had to be done.

“Three.”

CHAPTER THREE