As much as Waverly didn’t want to be around, she wanted even less to be ignorant as to what actually happened, so she went back to her apartment, stepped inside and closed the door.
The sight wasn’t as dramatic as before.
A lamp that could have easily been smashed was still in place, likewise for a picture frame, a radio too for that matter. Destruction wasn’t the motive. On the other hand, every drawer in the place had been pulled out and dumped. If something had been taken, it wasn’t obvious. A few things that should have been taken weren’t-her jewelry box for one, not that any of it was worth anything, but a thief wouldn’t know that at a rough glance, he’d be more prone to just take it and figure it out later. The more she looked around, the more she came to the conclusion that the man had been looking for something.
She picked a butcher knife off the floor and set it on the counter.
Then she got a pot of coffee going.
She drank a cup on the couch with the knife at her side.
Sunshine streamed through the windows.
Suddenly the phone rang.
It was Su-Moon, checking in to report she’d arrived safe and sound in Cleveland.
Waverly brought her up to speed on the break-in to her apartment as well as the note she was trying to get delivered to Bristol’s little spankee.
“With any luck she’ll show tonight.”
Su-Moon wasn’t impressed.
“You’re playing a dangerous game.”
“I’m going to scare her over to our side.”
“I doubt it.”
Waverly shrugged.
Time would tell.
“I won’t be coming back to my apartment so you won’t be able to get a hold of me here after this. Give me the number where you’re staying. I’ll have to contact you.”
Su-Moon read the numbers off and Waverly jotted them down and stuck the paper in her pocket.
“Call me at eight in the morning tomorrow, your time,” Su-Moon said.
“Okay.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Sooner or later, Waverly would need to come back here. She didn’t want to see the mess again and doubted the man would be back, so she resigned herself to cleaning up.
An hour into it she found something missing.
What it was made her palms sweat.
All her files were gone, every single last one of them.
93
In ten seconds River would be dead. He knew it in his heart, he knew it in his gut, he knew it in his mind. As soon as Spencer got the cuffs off Blank, he’d drag her outside and plant a bullet in River’s head right in front of her. River would no longer be a problem and Blank would be terrified into total submission from that point forward.
Spencer had been throwing glances his way every few seconds.
River wouldn’t get far if he ran.
It didn’t matter.
It was his only chance.
He muscled to his feet and forced his body into an immediate full-blown sprint.
A couple of steps, that’s all he got, before a bullet flew past his head.
“Stop or I’ll kill the girl!”
River took more steps but there was no power in them.
Then his body was at a stop.
His lungs went deep for air.
Spencer was on him in an instant, slamming the gun into River’s head and forcing him to his knees. “If it were up to me I’d kill you right now,” he said. “Here’s the deal. Listen hard because I’m only going to say it once. You’ve been retired. You won’t be getting any more jobs. I’m the new you, the new improved you. Go live your life any way you want but don’t do anything stupid. Everything that’s in your past, bury it there and bury it deep.”
The man grabbed River’s hair and tilted his face up higher.
“Here’s the important thing,” he said. “See that woman over there? Forget she exists, don’t come after her, don’t try to save her. Here’s the even more important part. Don’t come after me. Don’t make me regret that I’m following orders right now instead of splattering your stupid brains all over the ground. Be sure I never see your face again. If I even see you walking on the opposite side of the street I’m going to assume the worst. If you make even the slightest move against me anywhere at any time, I promise you that I will hunt you to the ends of the earth and take you to a hell you can’t even imagine. I already have permission to do it so consider this fair warning.”
He pulled the key to River’s cuffs out of his pocket and threw it a good distance into the brush.
“Find it, unlock yourself and have a nice life,” Spencer said.
He grabbed Blank’s hand, said “You’re coming with me,” and walked off.
Ten steps later he turned and said, “By the way, I’m not sure if I mentioned this or not, but if you do anything stupid, your little tattoo slut January is going to meet the same fate as you.”
He turned and walked.
With every step Spencer took, River realized deeper and deeper that he actually wasn’t going to die. Spencer wasn’t just playing a final sick trick on him. When the man disappeared behind the rusted hulk of a combine, River got to his feet and scrambled over to where the key was thrown.
The prairie grasses were thick.
River had watched the throw but not with as much focus as he should have. From where he stood, it could be ten feet in any direction, twenty even.
He memorized where he was, namely two steps from a moss rock half the size of a coffin. He started his search from there, ever widening in a spiraling circle.
Amazingly, he found it.
It took time, but there it was.
He got it into his fingers and found just enough twist left in his hands to get the key in the lock.
Then the cuffs were off.
He was free.
His wrists were red and raw, almost to the point of bleeding. Pain that hadn’t been there before suddenly materialized when the flesh became visible.
River rubbed the wounds.
Then he headed for the trailer.
Inside, as he suspected, was the gun he’d given Blank. He checked the chamber and found something he didn’t expect, namely every bullet had been fired except one.
