Anthony pulled up and reached behind him.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” LeVar said, strolling up to the boy with an easy swagger. Anthony was more likely to shoot his own foot than put a bullet in LeVar. “It’s time you and I talked.”
Anthony took a step back and glanced around. There was nobody to help. A rancid smell rolled out of a rusty dumpster. Greasy scents blew through a restaurant fan.
“Don’t want no trouble, LeVar. You know I was following orders.”
LeVar backed Anthony against a brick wall and trapped the boy. Standing a head taller than Anthony, LeVar looked the gang member up and down.
“You set me up.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Did you threaten my friends on Rev’s orders? Or was that the gangster wannabe in you talking?”
Anthony’s eyes fell to his sneakers.
“I wouldn’t have hurt nobody. Rev told me to put a scare into you.”
“Rev told you,” he scoffed. “Bad decisions will get your ass killed.”
Anthony lifted his chin.
“Yeah? You gonna do it?”
LeVar grabbed Anthony by his shirt collar and shoved him against the bricks, one muscular arm pinning the flailing boy against the wall.
“If I bled you right here, nobody would care. You’re just another gangster living on borrowed time. Shit, you didn’t even pay for the damn newspaper.” Anthony glanced at the paper tucked under his arm. LeVar tugged it away. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
“The enforcer for the Kings. We brothers.”
“Were brothers. You and me stopped being blood when you talked shit about my own. And for the record, I was a lot more than the enforcer. Long before Rev came on the scene, I was the security that kept every Kings leader alive.” LeVar swept an arm around the city. “None of this would be possible without me. Without LeVar keeping the wolves at bay, the Royals would’ve owned all this.” LeVar’s hand crept to Anthony’s neck and gave a squeeze. Just enough pressure so the kid understood LeVar could snap his neck if he chose. “Hell, Rev would’ve carved you up and left you to the dogs had I not stepped in. I saved your ass, so that makes me your god, boy. We didn’t have a sit down conversation about you. We had an understanding. Rev stayed in his lane, and he didn’t get trucked by LeVar.”
Anthony’s knees buckled when LeVar released him. LeVar patted the boy’s cheek.
“Ain’t no Harmon Kings no more. Kilo and Lawson, they don’t have stomachs for this. Now that Rev’s gone, y’all gonna scatter like cockroaches when the Royals take over. This is your opportunity to change your ways. Take your Mom and get out of Harmon. Move up north with your family. Nothing here for you anymore.”
LeVar held the boy’s eyes for a second longer. Then he strode away with no fear Anthony would pull his gun now that LeVar had turned his back.
“You remember what I told you, lil bro,” he said over his shoulder. “Don’t make me come looking for you. Next time, you’ll meet your maker.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Friday, August 20th
4:15 a.m.
Thomas jolted out of sleep. He sat up and caught his breath with Jack curled beside him. The big dog lifted his head and studied Thomas, who wiped his forehead on the bedsheet. A sliver of half-moon shone over the hills, starlight turning the lake silver.
In his dream, he’d been inside Alec Samson’s house. While he directed the gun across the darkened upper landing, the doors shook with an inhuman fury. The pounding hurt his ears, forced him to cower. He feared what hid behind those doors. Somewhere, a woman screamed inside the house. And in the strange way of dreams, he’d known it was Chelsey. The fly caught in the spider’s web.
He shook his head. Jack licked his hand and looked up at Thomas with his big doggy grin. Jack’s smile had a way of disarming Thomas and setting him at ease. Sighing with the knowledge he’d never get back to sleep, Thomas rubbed Jack behind his ears.
“Wanna go outside, boy?” Jack apparently did, for he jumped off the bed and stood on his hind legs, pawing at the bedroom door. “All right. Let me get my shoes on first.”
The morning was cool, dawn still two hours away. Fog curled off the lake and concealed the guest house. Jack did his business while Thomas stood in the grass with his robe pulled tight, hands rubbing the chill off his arms. Summers had a way of slipping away in upstate New York. You needed to appreciate them while they were here, for tomorrow the leaves would fall, and the wind would bring snow and cold and a desolate landscape.
For a frozen moment, Jack stood still, tail erect, his eyes staring into the night. Thomas shuffled to the dog’s side and followed his gaze. Something was in the fog.
“What is it, Jack?”
The dog didn’t growl. Just glared into the mist, unmoving, ready to bound forward if a threat emerged. A splash followed as an unseen animal descended into the lake. Jack turned away and whined up at Thomas. He patted the dog’s head.
His laptop sat open on the dining room table when Thomas returned inside. Locking the deck doors behind him, he filled the kettle with water and set it on the burner. From the cupboard, he removed a green tea packet and tore it open on the counter. While he waited for the water to heat, he jostled the computer out of sleep mode and called up the website for the Bluewater Tribune, Wolf Lake’s newspaper. Scanning the headlines, he stopped on a story chronicling the Alec Samson case. The Psycho House. That’s what the reporter called Samson’s
