he had worked his mouth. He might as well have told Marvis that April was in his basement. He might as well have told Bat Bautista, too.
And now the girl from his dreams was dead. Marvis was probably dead, too. But Steve guessed that Bat Bautista didn’t know that. Bat was busy setting traps at Skyview Memorial Lawn. He probably figured both April and Marvis were safe, well hidden until things blew over.
The note pinned to April’s cheek was the biggest lie yet. Steve was sure that Bat Bautista wanted to kill him. He stripped off his coat and shirt, put on the lightweight Kevlar vest he wore under his police uniform, and dressed again. Then he grabbed a shotgun from a cabinet in the garage. Sawed-off, double-barreled, loaded with number 0 buckshot-each pellet as lethal as a. 32-caliber bullet. He took some extra shells from another drawer and filled the pockets of his denim coat.
Something was wrong. There should have been a box of. 45-caliber ammunition next to the shotgun shells. Steve closed the drawer, opened another. His. 45 was missing, too.
Bat Fucking Bautista. And Steve had hoped to stop him with a friendly little warning.
Well, naivete was a bitch, wasn’t it?
Steve slammed the drawer, breaking the wooden knob. The missing gun didn’t matter. His. 38 police special was already in the Dodge.
In a matter of seconds, so was he.
He didn’t bother to close the garage door.
He was never coming back.
He gunned the sputtering engine and drove into the night.
He went to kill a nightmare.
11:30 P.M.
Lying in the bottom of April’s grave, trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, Amelia Peyton sure as shit didn’t look like she was worth anything.
Griz Cody steadied the flashlight, and the murky beam filled her startled gray eyes. Griz had taped her mouth shut so she couldn’t scream, but her eyes were doing a pretty good job of it.
Jesus. Who wouldn’t want to scream? Lying in a grave, in an open coffin half filled with muddy water. Who wouldn’t be terrified?
The water part was almost funny. Before Griz could find the flashlight, Derwin and Todd had tossed Amelia into the grave. The splash had surprised everyone. Playing the light over the grave, Griz had noticed the bent sprinkler head, which was still dripping a tired trickle. Most of the water had leeched into the soil, but the coffin was still pretty full, like some weird steel bathtub. And the guys had tossed Miss Priss Amelia Peyton into it, dead center.
Derwin said, “Turn off the light. Her eyes are givin’ me the creeps.”
“Sure.” Griz thumbed the flashlight switch. He knew what Derwin meant. Amelia Peyton had given them a good scare, and it was hard to shake it.
Christ, this whole night was going to be hard to shake. First Bat coming over, telling him that Ozzy Austin, who was a goddamn cop for christsakes, had the film and was going to start trouble with it. That hadn’t sounded so bad at first. How much trouble could Austin cause? After all, April was dead, and dead bitches couldn’t testify about anything.
Then Griz had remembered what was on the film. What it showed him doing. He didn’t want anyone to see that. He had kids, for christsakes.
That was when Bat dropped the kicker, saying that Ozzy Austin was the one who had stolen April’s corpse. It seemed obvious once Bat explained it-the shattered beer bottles at the cemetery, and Ozzy being the guy who had practically invented graveyard baseball. And then there was the way Austin had always mooned over April, scared to talk to her and all that shit. And when Bat said that Austin had actually jumped in his face that very afternoon, acting all weird and everything…well, that was just the icing on the fruitcake.
So they went to Austin’s house, Derwin and Todd in tow, planning to kick the shit out of him and get the film. Or maybe even kill him, but nobody actually said anything about that. But Austin wasn’t there, and it didn’t seem very smart sitting around the place waiting for him.
So they decided to snatch April’s corpse and go somewhere else. Somewhere a little quieter, where they could ambush Austin without any trouble.
Derwin stared into the grave, saw nothing. It was almost worse with the flashlight off, knowing those terrified eyes were swimming in the bottom of that black hole.
Shit. Terrified eyes. He had a picture of that. Bautista’s fuckin’ eyes bugging out when he kicked his way into Ozzy Austin’s basement and April Destino came at him with a busted bottle.
Wasn’t April, though. Was that bitch. Amy Peyton, dressed in April’s fuckin’ cheerleading outfit. Wearin’ a wig that made her look dead like April in high school. Sure, Amy Peyton wasn’t no eighteen year old, but she had taken care of herself. Hell, she looked pretty damn good. Except for the barmaid’s kiss that she held in her hand.
Funny thing was her expression. After Bat got the bottle away from her, that is. Saying that Ozzy was nuts, when she was the one dressed up like April.
Austin was nuts, though. Had to be. Lockin’ the Peyton bitch up with a corpse. Hell, two corpses. Fuckin’ dead fat guy lyin’ there on the floor. It turned out it was Dougy Douglas. Man had that asshole gone to seed.
Shit. The whole mess of ’em had to be buttfuck loony. And about that time the real deal dawned on the Peyton bitch. Derwin could see it in those gray eyes of hers. They turned wary all of a sudden, the color of a sharpened lawnmower blade. And he knew what was going on behind those eyes. Here I am, she was thinking. Here they are. But they’re not here to rescue me.
They’re the motherfuckers who raped April Destino.
They’re here to rape me.
Bitch tried to run, but there was no place for her to go. Not with four of them to stop her. Shit, bitch tried to scream, and he got hold of her and made her stop. She felt nice and warm against him, squirming around in her cute little cheerleading outfit. Brought back some memories and made his blood rise.
And then he tried to cop a feel and got nothing but a handful of paper hankies. Shit. This bitch wasn’t no April Destino.
Still…it seemed like a waste. They could still have some fun. Nice quiet basement. No one would hear her scream. Even Limp Dick Cody could have his fun.
Bat snuffed the candles on that particular cake. PDQ. Boy was getting even more paranoid than usual. Said they would leave evidence if they even did the slightest little thing to her. Said sperm was just like fingerprints, and boy did that strike Todd funny. He just laughed and laughed until he could hardly breathe. Then he stared at his fingertips and whispered to himself and started up laughing all over again.
Bat wasn’t laughing, though. Said let’s pack her up and go.
Get that nut and get the film.
Derwin didn’t care nothing about the film. He just wanted a piece of the nut. Rockin’ a cop-now that might make him feel pretty good.
He felt pretty good right now. Pistol jammed in his belt, blood pumpin’ through his veins, some bitch making sounds like a sick cat down in a hole in the ground.
This shit was a hell of a lot more interesting than mowing lawns.
Amelia Peyton’s moans turned Bat’s stomach. His kids had whined that way when they were babies. It was
