Cherry Bomb (25 page)
Authors: J. A. Konrath
I
OPENED MY EYES,
stared up at empty sky.
A moment later, the sky wasn’t empty. There was a plane flying over me. A jumbo jet, so close I could almost touch it.
But I couldn’t hear it. All I heard was a dull, droning hum.
Then the pain hit.
My head felt like it had cracked open and was leaking. My arm was behind my back, twisted at a funny angle. My legs were on fire.
I blinked. Checked my head. No major leaks, but a helluva lump, and my stitches had opened up. My arm hurt, but didn’t seem to be broken. And my legs weren’t actually burning, just cut up.
I looked left. I was lying next to the Bronco, when I’d been several yards away from it before.
I looked right. The Crimebago was mostly gone, leaving a smoking crater where it had been parked.
The lot had become a debris field. Harry’s scorched sofa. Part of the Murphy bed, red velour sheets still clinging to it. Half a computer monitor. The top part of a bucket seat. A severed human leg.
I squinted at the leg. It wore jeans, and a red boot with a stiletto heel.
The boots Alex had been wearing.
“Told you I wasn’t going with you,” I said to the leg.
I sat up, the world spinning, making my stomach unhappy. After swaying a little, I found my balance and began looking across the landscape of detritus for Harry.
He was ten yards to my left, taped to the broken remains of the chair.
I crawled to him, wincing at a dozen kinds of pain, navigating bits of engine and a burning spare tire that stung my eyes and nose.
“McGlade…”
His eyes were closed, his face a mess of gore. But he was bleeding. That meant he was alive.
I wiped some of the blood off his face, and was horrified that his nose came off in my hand. I resisted the urge to drop it—maybe surgeons could sew it back on somehow. I turned his head down, so the blood dripped away and not into his lungs, and then checked his pulse.
It was strong. I might have actually smiled a little.
Harry coughed, wet and garbled.
“Jackie?”
“Yes, Harry?”
“I can’t…I can’t feel my nose.”
“It, uh, it came off, Harry.”
“Fuck me. Where is it?”
I held up his nose, for him to see. He grunted, and I realized he was laughing.
“You got my nose,” he said.
I grinned at him.
“My ass hurts Do I still have an ass?”
I looked him over.
“Except for the nose, you’re pretty much intact.”
“I’m lying on something hard.”
I wasn’t thrilled to reach under him, but I quickly found the object causing him discomfort. A cell phone. And, incredibly, it still seemed to be working.
I dialed 911, told them to send everything they had.
“Is the bitch dead?” McGlade asked when I got off the phone.
“Yes, bro. She’s dead.”
“Good. I was getting kind of sick of her.”
I glanced over my shoulder and realized I had to make sure. “Be right back.”
I made the long return journey to the severed leg, winced at it, and then worked the zipper on the back. These looked like the boots Alex had been wearing, but I wanted to confirm it, grisly as the task was. When the zipper was down I reached inside…
Grabbed the ankle…
Began to pull it out…
Felt a hand, on my shoulder.
I spun around, terrified, thinking it was Alex, still coming after me like the Terminator, refusing to die even missing a limb.
It was Phin.
“Jack?”
“Toenails,” I told him. “Alex told me she was painting her toenails.”
I tugged the boot free, exposing her foot.
Five toes stared back at me, their nails fire engine red.
This was Alex. She was finally dead.
“Phineas Troutt, this is the FBI! Drop your weapon and raise you hands up over your head!”
Phin and I exchanged a panicked glance. Feebies were all over the place, rushing in from all directions. How the hell could they have followed us? Was there some sort of transmitter on me? Or on Harry? Had he made good on his deal and turned Phin in?
“Go,” I told Phin. “Run.”
He shook his head.
“Please.” I held on to his shoulder. Squeezed.
“You’re not going to jail for me, Jack. This is the only way to make it right.”
“Phin….”
He dropped the rifle and raised his hands.
Twenty seconds later they had him in cuffs and were dragging him off.
Special Agent Dailey approached me, looking prim and proper in a neatly pressed suit.
“Is that Alex Kork?” he asked, indicating the leg.
“What’s left of her. How’d you find me?”
“Your cell phone.”
Dammit. The call to my mother, and the calls from Alex.
“Phin’s a good man,” I said.
“I’m sure he is. But it’s not my job to get personal. It’s just my job to catch him. Getting personal would take more than I have to give.”
He appraised Alex’s leg again, then nodded to himself.
“Nice work here, Lieutenant.”
Someone found a fire extinguisher and was killing one of the burning tires. I watched for a moment, then looked beyond him, into the distance, into the world. A world that I was finally ready to be part of again. But not as a cop.
“It’s not
lieutenant,
” I said evenly. “Not anymore.”
“
I
’M READY TO SAY GOODBYE.”
The day was gorgeous, sun blazing, birds singing, a warm breeze whistling through the tombstones. I wasn’t wearing black this time. I had on a floral print dress, one I’d bought de cades ago, something casual and flirty and created for a much younger, happier woman. Someone optimistic.
The grass over Latham’s grave was green and lush, like it had been growing there for years rather than just four days. I crouched down, placed a single red rose on the ground. Six feet above his heart. I stayed like that for a moment, the two dozen sporadic stitches in my legs protesting.
“I’m sorry for everything. Mostly that I didn’t reach this conclusion earlier. You never pushed me into quitting, never made any demands. Thank you for that. But I’m retired now, and if there’s anything beyond this world and you’re listening, I hope you can forgive me. I also hope I gave you even a tenth of the happiness that you gave me. I love you, Latham.”
I stood, wiped the tears off my cheeks. My purse rang, and I fished out my cell.
“Thank you for the gift,” Herb said.
“Did the Turduckinlux come?”
“Did you send me that too? How about steaks?”
“Assorted steaks, Herb. I got you the Meat Lover’s Package. It also comes with an angioplasty.”
“I appreciate it, Jack.” He cleared his throat. “Bernice also gave me the other thing. Your badge. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“I think it’s a good thing.”
“Because now I can’t boss you around anymore?”
“Because you deserve to be happy. Now you have a chance to.”
I stared at Latham’s headstone and pursed my lips.
“When are you getting out?” I asked.
“You know hospitals. They want to milk every last cent out of you. I could actually use some milk right now. Or ice cream. Do you like ice cream? I like bacon. They should make bacon-flavored ice cream.”
“Hi, Jack,” Bernice was talking now. “The latest morphine dose is kicking in, he’s babbling.”
“He’ll be okay?”
“Everything looks good.” A pause. “Will you be okay?”
I glanced at the grave again, then looked up at the sun.
“I think so.”
“Good. Stop in later, that will cheer him up. But don’t bring any food.”
“Bring food!” Herb thundered in the background. “It’s horrible here!”
“Don’t bring food,” Bernice repeated. “Doctors have him on a liquid diet.”
“It’s horrible!” he wailed.
“I’ll be by later.”
I hung up, popped the phone back into my purse, and it rang again. I put it to my face.
“Hello?”
Another ring. But it wasn’t my phone. It was coming from my purse. I hunted around, found the cell Harry had had in his pocket, the one I’d used to call 911. I checked the caller ID. Four-one-four. A Wisconsin area code. I answered.
“Hello?”
“Is this Gracie?” A woman’s voice.
“I’m sorry, no it’s not.”
“Do you know anyone named Gracie?”
“I don’t. This is Harry McGlade’s phone.”
“Do you know Samantha Porter? I’m her neighbor. I’m watching her daughter, Melinda.” The voice was frantic, and picking up speed. “Sam’s been gone for two days, and I finally got the landlord to let me into her apartment. I found this number with the name Gracie written on it. She was supposed to go shopping with Gracie, but I haven’t heard back from her in two days.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know any of those people.”
“I don’t know what else to do. I’ve called the police, but they haven’t been able to find her. Sam didn’t tell me much about Gracie, only that she was a dancer too before the car accident scarred her face.”
My core temperature dropped ten degrees.
“Gracie had a scarred face?”
“Just one side, Sam said.”
“Can you describe Samantha for me?”
“Tall. Athletic. Blond hair.”
“Did she have a pair of red boots?”
“She was a dancer. She had a lot of boots.”
“I’ve got your number. I’ll call you back.”
I hung up, feeling numb. This wasn’t Harry’s phone. It was Alex’s phone. The last phone in the daisy chain.
It all came to me in a rush. What Alex had done. How she’d pulled it off.
Alex was still alive. And she was getting away.
And I knew what I had to do to stop her.
N
OT PERFECT,
but not bad.
The plan had been to grab Jack and drive the Winnebago to the Prius parked a few blocks away. Then she’d blow up the RV, with Samantha Porter’s body inside, and Harry would ID the body from the ugly Enrique Perez boots. But things had gone a little squirrelly, and she had to abandon both Harry and Jack.
Still, the plan mostly worked. After her date with Sam, they’d gone back to her apartment. Alex had taken Sam’s passport, ID, and some of her belongings, then marched the naive stripper back to her Prius and shot her in the backseat.
Now Alex was Samantha. They looked enough alike that she should be able to cross the border into Mexico without any hassle. Once there, the plastic surgeon she’d been exchanging e-mails with would fix her scarred face, turning her into an exact copy of Sam, for the tidy sum of forty grand cash. After recuperating, Alex could go after Jack, Harry, and Phin at her leisure, without worrying about the law breathing down her neck.
Alex smiles, half her face immobile, and runs her hand along the My Ass jeans she’s wearing. Samantha’s jeans.
I knew I’d get into your pants.
Alex looks at her reflection in the rearview mirror, adjusts her bangs.
“Hello, Sam. I think I’m going to love you.”
For the first time in a long time, Alex has hope for the future. And it feels wonderful.
She checks out of the hotel using the TV remote control, grabs the duffel bag full of money, and notices that her cell phone, plugged into the charger, is blinking like it has a message.
Odd. No one should know this number.
She picks it up, sees the call forwarding is still on. Alex thought she’d turned it off. Maybe that’s what’s blinking. She turns it off for sure this time, and also double-checks that the Bluetooth is disabled.
Not that it matters. No one knows she’s alive. No one is coming after her.
Alex leaves the hotel and walks into the parking lot. It’s a gorgeous day, sunny and warm. She left the windows open on the Prius last night, and the death smell is just about gone. There are some stains, if you look really close. Alex decides she’ll stop at the next car wash she sees and give the carpet a shampoo.
She climbs in, starts the car, and gets ready for the long drive south.
A few moments after pulling onto the expressway, her cell phone rings.
Alex’s breath catches. There’s a simple explanation. There has to be. It’s a wrong number. Or a telemarketer. Something stupid and harmless.
She picks it up but doesn’t answer, squinting at the caller ID.
555-5555.
What the fuck?
There has to be something wrong with the phone. That’s the only thing that makes sense.
Then it beeps, indicating a text message.
THIS IS ALEX. SHE’S A SERIAL KILLER.
It’s followed by a photo.
Alex’s mug shot.
THIS IS NOT SAMANTHA PORTER. AND THE BORDER PATROL KNOWS THAT.
This can’t be happening. This really can’t be happening. Alex has worked out every detail. This plan is perfect. Who the hell could have figured it out?
Another beep.
THIS IS JACK. SHE’S REALLY PISSED OFF.
A photo. Jack Daniels, staring right at her. Looking colder, harder, meaner, than Alex has ever seen before.
And Alex feels something she hasn’t felt since she was a little child, hiding in the basement from Father so he couldn’t punish her.
Alex feels absolute terror.
Someone honks, and Alex looks up and slams on the brakes, the Prius fishtailing, barely avoiding a collision with the car ahead of her. She pulls onto the shoulder, heart hammering, a giant lump in her throat preventing her from swallowing.
The phone rings again. Alex jumps in her seat.
Another ring.
Another ring—it seems to be getting louder.
Alex reaches for the phone, jittery and fearful, like it’s a scorpion, then tentatively holds it up to her ear.
“I know the ID you’re using,” Jack says. “I know the car you’re driving. You can’t leave the country. Once I call the state cops, you won’t even get out of Illinois.”
“What do you want?” Alex asks, surprised at how weak her voice sounds.
“To meet. We’re ending this, Alex, once and for all.”
Alex forces a laugh. “You’re insane. I’m not meeting with you. If I show up, I’ll be surrounded by cops.”
“No cops. Just us.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“I’ll have my passport on me. Samantha Porter’s name is worthless to you. I’ve made sure of that. But if you kill me, you can be Jack Daniels. You’ll have to dye your hair from blond to brunette, but I’m betting you can manage.”
Alex considers it, then dismisses it almost immediately.
“No way. I’ve got no reason to trust you.”
“I’m not going to arrest you, Alex. I’m not going to make that mistake again. We’re meeting so I can kill you.”
Now Alex does actually laugh.
“You don’t have it in you, Jack. You’ve tried before and always lost.”
“I won’t lose this time.”
“Why? Because you’ll have one of your dumb-ass friends backing you up?”
“Harry and Herb are in the hospital. Phin is in federal custody, his bail set at a million dollars. This is between you and me, Alex. It’s always been between you and me.”
“And if I don’t show up?”
“Then I’ll be following you. Every day. Every hour. Every minute, I’ll be on your ass. But I won’t be playing it your way anymore, running around trying to save people. Latham left me a fortune, and I’ll spend every last dime hunting you down like the animal you are. If you want to live constantly looking over your shoulder, that’s up to you. But I want to finish this. Now.”
Alex drums her fingers on the steering wheel, her mind churning. She’s always been smarter than Jack. Outsmarting her one more time shouldn’t be hard. And if it actually came down to a fight, Alex is stronger, and faster, and a better shot. The only thing to worry about is being lied to, but Alex doesn’t sense any deceit on Jack’s part. One of the good lieutenant’s many flaws is her honest streak. Like a forty-seven-year-old Girl Scout.
“Fine,” Alex decides. “Same place as yesterday, behind O’Hare. If I sense something is funny, I won’t show up.”
“Twenty minutes,” Jack says.
Alex pulls back onto the expressway. Jittery—from nerves, excitement, and anticipation.
How fun it will be to live life as Jack Daniels.