Between the Cracks and Burning Doors: Book 2 of The Extraction List Series (7 page)

She could never stand to be alone.

Once she had him buckled in, she drove to a lake ten miles from our house, and drove straight out into the water. They were both pronounced dead.

Except, that’s not what the police thought happened. They thought I loaded them both into the car, put it in neutral, and pushed it into the water, watching my problems disappear under the bubbling surface. They thought that my mother had no reason to kill herself since she was married to such a prominent member of the community, a man who went to church, gave to charity, and bought her diamonds for every birthday. They thought, however, that their troubled, quiet son was just a mass shooting waiting to happen, and that I had started on the people closest to me.

I was now public enemy number one.

“Fuuuck!” I slammed my hand on the steering wheel. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!”

Maureen jerked her head up and looked around like she was being hunted too.

Sorry, just me.

“What? What the hell?”

I pulled the car over and the tires squealed as I jerked it onto the gravel edge of the road. My body tingled again, but not in a good way. “She fucked up. She fucked up bad.”

Maureen grabbed my hand. I jerked it away. “Who?”

I took a deep breath. “My mother.”

Maureen looked at me like she wanted more information. I hesitated to give it to her, but since she already knew who I was, and since the situation didn’t seem like it could get any worse, I told her everything. I told her about the pipe and the woman’s speech that I was watching right before it happened. I told her about my mom telling me she’d take care of it. I told her how stupid I was for believing she could take care of anything, let alone a murder charge, since she’d never taken care of me a day in her life.

And I told her how the police had gotten everything wrong. “How could they even think that? How did they get it so backwards?”

Maureen laughed. My hand itched like it wanted to hit the steering wheel again. “You obviously haven’t been around many cops, have you? Where have you been? There’s no money anymore. They’re glorified security guards. Don’t expect any actual police work. Ever. I’m surprised they even found the car, to be honest.”

I glared at her. “Okay, smartass, what do I do then? They’re still going to be looking for me.”

Again, she reached for my hand. I didn’t pull away this time. “Honey, as long as you don’t do anything incredibly stupid, you’ll be fine.”

I startled myself when a laugh escaped from my own lips. It crept up on me, like a car taking an unexpected corner. “What, stupid like helping someone else bury a body? Is that the kind of stupid you’re talking about?”

Maybe it was the sleep deprivation. Maybe we were both just really sick people. Whatever the reason, we just sat there laughing. We laughed until our ribs hurt and we could barely breathe. When we had finally exhausted ourselves, she turned to me. “Just keep your head down and you’ll be fine. Trust me.”

I didn’t yet, but I was starting to.

The next morning, two children showed up at the church door. I had only gone to bed a couple hours beforehand. By the time Nick and I got home from Maureen’s, neither of us spoke, we were so exhausted.

The morning came sooner than I wanted it to. The sun peeked through a crack in the curtains, drawing a line from the window to one of my eyes. I forced myself to open them. When I heard the knock on the front door, Nick didn’t even stir.

Each child carried a gift basket, stuffed so high that I couldn’t see either of their faces; they just looked like wicker baskets with legs, bursting with canned food, fruit, and even some doughnuts. The baskets were so big that I thought the children might tip over. I thought at first that they were trying to sell me something. “Who are you?”

The first child smiled brightly. “Maureen sent us. Said we’re gonna live with you now.” She dug into her pocket and produced a small white piece of paper.

I hoped she wasn’t about to ask me to bury another body.

I carefully unfolded the paper, bracing myself for impact. Instead, I found myself smiling.

We’re having a two-for-one sale on small people today. Buy-one-get-one-free, so to speak. Even comes with bonus packs. Can’t have you letting them starve, can I? –M.

Maureen wasn’t wrong. I really hadn’t thought past buying the children’s freedom. It hadn’t even occurred to me that I was now responsible for feeding them. My parents’ house was always full of food; it didn’t dawn on me until right then that they had to
pay
for that food with money that I wasn’t sure I had enough of. I was beginning to see there would be a lot more going into this than I thought.

I couldn’t keep them forever, that was for sure. What was I even supposed to do with a bunch of kids?

The woman on the TV flashed across my mind.

Of course.
The blonde woman on the TV would get her bill passed. She missed her chance to rescue me, but somehow, she would be able to help them. I’d fill up the church as much as I could, and once the bill passed, she’d take it from there. She would save me after all, my guardian angel with nothing but a microphone and a camera.

I hoped.

Until then, though, I had two children on my porch with nowhere to sleep.

I shuffled them inside and had them carry their gift baskets up the stairs. As I put the food away, I asked them their names. Alexis’s big green eyes almost reminded me of Maureen’s, and I scolded myself for liking her simply based on that. Her parents were both arrested for robbing a store. She was eleven and had stayed with her grandmother for a year before running away. When she mentioned her grandmother, she squeezed her hands together and seemed to shift her weight from one foot to another. Quickly, she introduced the boy next to her. Felix was ten like Nick and had lived with his brother before he went to the grocery store and never came back.

That’s as far as I got in Felix’s story before I heard another knock at the door. Nick ran to the window faster than I could. “It’s just some guy; got a flannel shirt on.”

I grabbed him and pulled him from the window. “Get yourself and them to the basement. Now.”

They obeyed. For once, Nick didn’t ask me any questions.

It only took about a minute for the children to slip downstairs. I guessed they were used to following orders and staying out of sight.

As useful as it was, I felt a peculiar aching in my chest, seeing they had to grow so talented at it.

I peered through the peephole at the door. The man didn’t appear dangerous wearing tattered jeans and black shoes…except for the badge in his hand.

This is it. It’s all over. Should I run?

I held my breath as I opened the door. “May I help you?”

The man extended his hand, grasping mine in a shake before I could even raise it all the way forward. “Hello, sir, my name’s Officer Keegan. Marcus, actually. Just call me that.”

I nodded.

“Mind if I come in?”

I shut the door behind me, keeping both of us on the porch. “For what?”

Marcus smiled. He had one of those hidden builds: slender but toned. Toned enough to punish you if you crossed him on the wrong day. “Gosh, I’m sorry. I’ve been gettin’ some calls from members of the congregation at this church.” He leaned in. “Look, I know Father Dominic’s in jail. Nice guy, real nice. People keep callin’ us though, concerned that he just up and left without saying why. And from all the talk of some goodwill mission to some place or other, I figured he didn’t want me to tell them the real reason.”

My muscles relaxed, but not by much. “That’s very nice.”

“Figured if I came by and checked on the place, might ease people’s minds a little. We can tell them one of us came by and Dom’s not lying dead in the basement or something.” He elbowed me in the side as he chuckled. I had to force my lips to part into a smile. “This way I can truly say I came by. Not a lie, just not the whole truth. So if you don’t mind…oh yeah, I’m sorry, what was your name again?”

“Jack. I…I’m taking care of it while he’s gone. He’s a family friend. My parents are…gone too, so it worked out. Come on in.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself focused.

As we walked around the church, I strained my ears, listening for any sound that might give us away. I heard a rustling, but couldn’t be sure where it was coming from. We were almost to the basement door when Nick fell out of the supply room closet and onto the floor in a pile of brooms and buckets.

I froze. I have to admit it. I froze. I didn’t know whether to run, hide, or hit Officer Keegan over the head with something and hope for the best. So when Nick crawled out of the rubble and came over to us, I thought we were all about to be carted away to jail. Or worse.

Nick looked up at me with his freckled face. “Bro, who’s this?” I remained frozen. For just a moment, I didn’t understand that he had not only recovered beautifully, but he had added another element that made me NOT match the description of Cain Foley. “Jack?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, this is Officer Keegan…uh, Marcus. He’s just checking on the place.”

With the confidence of a presidential candidate, Nick threw his hand out to Officer Keegan. “Pleased to meet you, sir! Are you gonna play Hide and Seek with us?”

Keegan laughed. “Sorry, son, maybe next time.”

The three of us headed toward the door. “Shoot, I didn’t check the basement…oh well, I think I’ve interrupted your game enough.” He ruffled Nick’s hair. There was something about the way he did it that I didn’t like…a little too much force in his fingertips. “Oh, one more thing though, maybe you can help me. Couple of us are trying to find a missing person, asking around town and stuff.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a folded photo. When he opened it so I could see the picture, the hair on my arms stood up and my legs felt like we were on a ship in the middle of a typhoon. “You haven’t seen this guy, have you? He went to…nobody’s seen him since last night. Plain disappeared. Name’s Billy. My brother and one of my best guys. We’ve been on the force together for fifteen years now.” He glanced at Nick then back at me. “You take care of your brother. Can’t be too careful these days.” I had to fight away the dots dancing in front of my eyes. I had seen the man in the picture before, right before Maureen and I stripped him naked and burned his clothes.

“Haven’t seen him.” I hoped the officer didn’t hear the shake in my voice, or see the trembling in my fingers.

After Officer Keegan had safely made his way down the street, I told Nick to lock the door behind me and make sure that the three of them stayed in the upstairs apartment with the curtains drawn until I got back.

I don’t remember walking to Maureen’s house, I don’t even remember flying up the steps and opening the door without knocking. I pretty much blacked out until I found her in her room and pushed her against the wall.

“What the hell?
A
cop
? You didn’t tell me we were burying a
cop
.”

She tried to get away from me but I blocked her with my arms on both sides. “I didn’t know, I swear!”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I swear.”

I beat both my fists against the wall next to her. Plaster from the ceiling rained down into her hair. “Okay, fine, I knew. But I needed your help. You wouldn’t have helped me otherwise.”

I released her. “Yes, I would have.”

I walked over to her bed and sat down, facing away from her. A dead father, a dead mother, and now I had helped a cop killer.

Maybe jail won’t be so bad. Can’t be any worse than living with Dad. At least I wouldn’t be the only one getting the shit kicked out of me.

I stared at the wall. Maybe if I had run, just taken the car and drove, maybe then I could have made it. Every different scenario, everything I could have done, played out in my head.

But I couldn’t help but notice I wasn’t leaving Maureen’s bedroom.

She sat down by my side, staring into space right along with me. “The late shift…at the police station. They take turns coming in; each gets one night a week. No one else is at the station so they cover for each other. Or so they tell me.” She squeezed the bedspread tightly in her hands, and swayed back and forth. “Can I ask you something?”

I said nothing.

“When you killed your father…what did it feel like?”

My arm fell around her before I told it to. “As I hit him…I felt like…like I could finally breathe. Like I had never breathed until that moment…like I was taking out the devil himself.” I paused for a moment, but forced myself to continue. “Then he stopped moving and I wished I could take it all back.” She leaned her head on my shoulder. “Like no matter how much I felt like my life had just started… when the life left his eyes it felt like mine had stopped all over again.”

“Even if nothing changed…even if you still lived there and he was still…him…would you take it back if you could?”

Without hesitating for even an instant, I said, “Yeah. Without question, yeah.”

She looked up at me. “That’s the thing. I wouldn’t.”

We just sat there in the quiet for a long time. The only sound between us was her steady breathing, and the creaking of the antique wooden floors as the world continued beneath our feet. The smell of lasagna wafted up through the walls. She smiled a mischievous smile at me. “I guess that makes us murder buddies, huh?”

A smirk passed over my lips. “Murder buddies?”

“Yeah! Come on, friends have to have similar interests and all, right?”

“Well I don’t know how interested I am in it. And I doubt you are either.”

“True, they did just kinda fall into our laps. But still.” She jumped off the bed and extended her hand. “Does my Murder Buddy want to stay for lunch?”

I took it and followed her downstairs.

I didn’t look at her while I ate. Several of the children sat around the table with us, all with straight backs, chewing with their mouths closed. I couldn’t help but notice all the seats were still full. “I thought there were twelve of them. I took three. There’s still twelve here.”

I could hear her scoff at me from across the table. I tightened the grip around my fork. “Plenty of runaways around here. Small town, no jobs. When you buy one there’s always another.” I glanced up at her as she smiled and stuck a forkful of lasagna in her mouth. “Always.”