Go Kill Crazy! (13 page)

Echo frowned. “
Was
convinced?”

“So you noticed the past tense there. Good. You’re finally paying attention.” Casey smiled, but inside he was barely holding it together. This remained a very dangerous situation. Echo’s volatility meant he was a second away from taking a bullet in the face as long as she had that gun in her hand. He had to keep playing on her lingering fondness for Keely and hope like hell it would be enough to earn him a reprieve. “Stark disappeared about a month ago. Nobody has seen or heard from him since then.”

Echo’s expression was thoughtful. “And you think these Order people had something to do with his disappearance?”

“Can’t prove it, but I fucking
know
they had something to do with it. Stark got a little too close to the truth, maybe found out something he wasn’t supposed to know, and got killed for it. These dead motherfuckers here…” Casey nodded to indicate the bullet-riddled bodies on the floor. “…they’re Order thugs. They came here to take care of me same way they took care of Stark. See that phone on the table?” He waited until Echo noticed it. “There’s an insane video message from Keely on it that’ll prove what I’m saying.”

Echo sidestepped toward the table and turned the phone toward her. She swiped at the screen a couple times and then Casey heard his sister’s voice as the message began to replay. Having watched it once already, he kept his attention on Echo’s subtly shifting expression, watching for any kind of hopeful indication.

When the messaged ended, she said, “Maybe there’s something to all your paranoid bullshit, after all.”

Casey heaved a relieved sigh. “Thank God.”

Echo’s pretty features hardened subtly. “What, you think you’re off the hook now, Casey?”

She aimed the gun at his midsection.

He swallowed with difficulty. “Echo…please…”

“That’s a start.”

“What?”

Echo laughed. “I still want to hear you beg. I still want to see you on your knees. Maybe I’ll help you with this thing with your sister and maybe I won’t, I don’t know yet. But if you want even a slight chance, you’ll give me what I want.”

Casey didn’t say anything. He had done his best to talk his way out of it, but it was looking like this might be the end of the line for him anyway.

Echo moved away from the table and placed the barrel of the 9mm against his forehead. “So what’s it gonna be, baby? Do I get what I want? Are you gonna get on your fucking knees right now?”

Casey knew the time had come to swallow his last pitiful shred of pride. There was no choice at all here. Any remaining hope of saving Keely would have to begin with doing whatever it took to save his own life.

He let out a breath.

And dropped to his knees.

Echo’s big smile was incandescent. “There’s a good boy.”

Her expression turned hard again.

Then she whipped the gun across his face.

Chapter Eleven

De Rais Ranch

One day before the shootout on 2
^nd
Avenue

The man his followers knew as John Wayne de Rais had gone by many other names during his more than fifty years of life. A succession of aliases was just a natural part of the conman’s existence. Frequent change and reinvention were necessary to stay ahead of the game. There were times when he was hard-pressed to remember his birth name at all.

The night he cut a Columbian coke mule’s throat was the end of the road for “Billy Evans”, his first assumed identity. After that he drifted around the country, rarely staying anywhere for as long as he lived the life of a grifter. An uncle—by then doing a long stretch in a federal penitentiary—had taught him the fine art of swindling suckers. The uncle’s downfall was in getting a little too ambitious, in part because of gambling debts that had spiraled out of control. His uncle’s troubles were why he stuck with low-level scams for many years thereafter. A life behind bars didn’t appeal to him much.

Before he knew it, decades had passed and he had been dozens of different people. He had been to a lot of places and seen a lot of things. It was an interesting way to live a life and the money he made doing what he did was more than enough to get by, especially as the years went by and he got better and better at it.

But eventually he began to tire of grifting. The thrill of conning people out of their money had diminished. That was when he began thinking about getting into the fake religion business. Human beings were always looking for something to believe in, something bigger and more meaningful than the drudgery that characterized their little lives. They craved enlightenment and an uplifting of the spirit unavailable in their dead-end jobs and stunted relationships. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he also wanted those things. That was when the incipient notion began to become something more than just another scam.

From the beginning, he understood that the so-called “normal” people leading happy, well-adjusted lives would not be his target audience. Instead he would go after those who had lost their way. The confused and damaged people. The restless wanderers.

Hence…“The Order of Wandering Souls”.

Still, it remained only a concept until the incarcerated uncle passed away and left this ranch property to him. When John visited the place for the first time and got a look at its rolling, expansive grounds, he felt that fate had been guiding him to that moment his entire life, because it was immediately clear he had found the ideal place to found his new movement.

John Wayne pushed the leather chair away from the big desk in his office and swiveled around to peer through the window that overlooked the grounds behind the ranch house. He blew out a lungful of smoke and tapped a cigarette against the edge of the ashtray he kept on the windowsill.

Smoking was an old, much-loved pleasure he was unfortunately having a harder time enjoying these days. He kept doing it. The addiction was as strong as ever. But drawing the smoke into his lungs made him feel light-headed in a way that never used to happen. It also made the headaches he’d been having lately worse. Sometimes they were so bad he felt like putting his fist through a wall. This time, though, there was only a mild ache and for that he was thankful. The strong pills his doctor had prescribed probably wouldn’t be necessary this time.

John blew the smoke toward the high ceiling of his office as he stared out at the rows of cabins some one hundred yards in the distance. Most of his young acolytes lived in those cabins, which were arranged in a manner that made them resemble a section of pioneer town in the Old West. They were required to live simply, without the modern conveniences of electricity, television or, most importantly, the Internet. Ostensibly this was to help them become more in touch with the beauty of nature. In reality, John didn’t want them seeing the many negative things the Order’s detractors had to say about the organization.

After stubbing out the cigarette butt, he grabbed a pair of binoculars from his desk and took another look out the window. He adjusted the focus and scanned the cabins and surrounding grounds. This was just an idle bit of surveillance. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular. But then he caught sight of a long-legged young woman in shorts and a halter top. She was fighting the wind as she struggled to pin sheets to a clothesline.

John adjusted the focus again and zoomed in on her, watching as she bent over to draw another clean white sheet out of the basket at her feet. The way her pleasingly round ass strained the fabric of those shorts was a wondrous thing to behold. He felt a stirring in his groin as she stood up and flipped an end of the sheet over the clothesline. As she worked to make the sheet fit in a neat, snug way on the line, she turned at an angle that allowed him a fuller glimpse of her face.

Beneath the binoculars, John’s lips twitched in a smile.

I remember that gal.

The Order’s ranks included quite a few attractive young women. Though the temptation to do otherwise was immense, he made it a rule not to fuck the newer initiates. At that stage, it was important not to spoil his illusory purity. They might get cold feet and leave before fully giving themselves over to the Order. But there were ways they could prove themselves worthy and advance to a place within the hierarchy beyond which there was no turning back, a point of utter trust and commitment. He fucked the ones who made it that far on a regular basis.

But this gal…oh, how sorely she had tempted him. She was so comely, so radiantly sexual, and in a sly, knowing way that had a powerful effect on his libido. The day she arrived at the compound was the closest he had ever come to violating his rule of banging the fresh meat. There had been no actual intercourse, but he had succumbed to her unprompted offer of a blowjob. On that day his desire was stronger than his usually formidable willpower. But there had been a secondary reason at work that day, something more powerful than mere temptation. He had grappled with one of the first of the truly monstrous headaches much of that day, and it had subsided shortly before his meeting with her. Accepting the girl’s gift of pleasure had been the most life-affirming thing available to him at the time, temporary proof that moments of perfect bliss were still possible.

John Wayne made a hungry sound as he watched her chase after a sheet the wind ripped from her hands, her breasts bouncing beneath the flimsy fabric of the halter top.

The ache flared in his head again.

Fuck it.

He swiveled around and thumbed a button on the desk phone.

“Boyd!”

“Sir?” came the reply over the phone’s speaker.

“Get in here. I need you to fetch me someone.”

“Yes, sir.”

Keely cursed in frustration as the wind tore the sheet from her hands and sent it whirling across the grass. She hurried to catch up to it before it could reach the barren ground near the cabins. If that happened, the sheet would become noticeably dirty and she would have no choice but to clean it again. She had spent entirely too much time cleaning things these last two weeks. Everything—every sheet, every garment, every towel—had to be spotless lest she risk incurring Susan Wagner’s wrath again.

A desperate dive allowed her to snag a corner of the sheet just before it could reach the edge of the grass. Tears welled in her eyes as she sat up and reeled the sheet in. She had already spotted a small green smear on the white cotton fabric. She would either have to wash it again or willingly go to Susan and subject herself to additional sexual humiliation in exchange for a break from the drudgery of physical labor. Normally she would opt to do the extra work, but she was so damn tired of doing laundry. And today had been an especially long day. The thought of having to wash even one more sheet made her almost inexpressibly weary.

She got to her feet and began to trudge back to the clotheslines, where many other pinned sheets and clothes flapped loudly in the high winds. The empty laundry basket was on its side, knocked over by the wind. The sheet that had gone flying had been the last item at the bottom of the basket. She was thankful for that, at least. Multiple soiled laundry items would have brought her to the brink of suicide.

A man in a black suit stepped from behind one of the flapping sheets, making her gasp in surprise.

“Are you Keely Miller?”

Keely eyed the man warily. “Who wants to know?”

“John Wayne de Rais. I’m to bring you to his office in the big house.”

Keely gaped at the man. A summons to see John Wayne didn’t happen often, especially for newer initiates. She felt immediate regret for her reflexive impertinence and hoped word of it wouldn’t get back to him. The man’s dark suit should have told her to treat him with deference. All his top-level security guys wore them.

Of course, she couldn’t help wondering why she was being summoned. She was no one special here, at least not yet. But she knew Susan had the guru’s ear. They were old friends. She guessed it was possible de Rais wished to personally reprimand her or perhaps even kick her out of the Order. At this point, she was no longer sure that would be such a bad thing.

She dropped the soiled sheet in the basket and knelt to pick it up. “I’ll be happy to go with you, but this got dirty again. I need a minute to run it back to—”

“Leave it.”

Keely frowned. “But—”

“Leave it.” The man’s tone was curt. “You’re expected at the big house promptly. Someone else will be along to finish your work.”

“Are you sure? It wouldn’t take but a minute. I’d hate to get in trouble.”

“Jesus, lady. Put the damn basket down and come with me.”

The guy’s tone indicated further argument wouldn’t be wise. So Keely set the basket on the ground and forced a smile. “Lead the way.”

The security man turned away from her and started toward the house, leading the way at a brisk pace that left her hurrying to catch up. She fought an impulse to take off running in some random direction just to spite him. But she immediately rejected the notion. According to Susan, she was being closely monitored at all times. The impulse would be interpreted as an escape attempt and escape wasn’t possible, at least for her.

Most initiates were free to leave the Order if they wanted—though very few ever did—but that was no longer the case for Keely Miller. She was essentially a prisoner here now, had become one the moment she ran afoul of Susan Wagner.