Last Call - A Thriller (Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels Mysteries Book 10) (38 page)

“I’m your mother, Lucy,” she managed, her voice cracking. “Your real mother. When I was eight years old, I was on the beach with my family. Two men came. Do you remember, Luther? They took me.”

“Katie?” Luther said.

She nodded, the tears streaming down her face. “It’s me, Luther. It’s Katie. They kept me for years. But I escaped when I was thirteen. I escaped… and I had you, Lucy. My precious, beautiful Lucy. I had to give you up. But I’m here now. Mommy’s here now. I’ve been looking for so long, and here you both are, in the same place. It’s a miracle. We’re a family again.”

“I did not see this one coming,” Harry said.

“Katie?” Luther reached out his hand, and she went to him.

Hugged him.

Hugged her brother.

“I found them, Luther. The men who tore us apart. Ben and Winston. I made them pay. Look.”

Katie pulled the folded front page of the Kanas City Times out of her pocket. “Two Dead In Torture/Murder,” she read.

Luther held the paper in a shaking hand. Katie took out her camera and began flipping through jpegs on the view screen.

“Look what I did to them, little brother. Look. I made them suffer. They suffered a long, long time.”

“Katie?” he said again. “Where have you been?”

Katie began to bawl even harder. She supposed all family reunions were tear-jerkers.

“I couldn’t remember our last name, Luther. I only remembered it ten years ago, after Mom and Dad were already gone. But I’ve missed you my whole life, and I’ve been searching for you since then. I read everything I could. About both of you. I followed every trail.” She sniffled, smiling through a line of snot. “I’m not close to your numbers, I know, but I’ve tortured and killed fourteen people, looking for you both. Sixteen, with Ben and Winston. And now we’re finally together. I’ve never been this happy. How did you two find each other?”

“Birds of a feather,” Luther said.

Katie couldn’t believe this was actually happening. It was all so perfect. Nothing could ruin this moment.

“Hiya, Katie,” McGlade said. “You know that sex you owe me? How about you just let us go, and we’ll call it even. We had some fun times, right? Remember singing scat? Sca baa doobie do wah dee doo—”

Except that.

“Shut up, McGlade,” she said, pointing the Colt at him. “Do you know how many times I came
this
close to slitting your throat while we were on that endless, terrible road trip?”

“I dunno. Eight?”

“You are pretty irritating to travel with, Harry,” Herb said.

Katie switched the gun to Herb. “Shut up, fatso.”

“You are pretty fat, Herb,” Harry said. “And don’t tell me I didn’t hear your stomach rumble when psychopants here was roasting his hand.”

The gun went back to Harry. “Talk again, and I shoot you.”

“Shut up, McGlade,” Jack said. “You’re not helping.”

Katie turned the Colt on Jack. “And you. I am so tired of your mouth. You condescending, self-righteous, sanctimonious, whiny, neurotic bitch.”

“I don’t think you’re whiny, Jack,” Harry said.

Katie aimed and shot him.

McGlade flopped forward onto his face. Herb turned to him. “Harry!”

“I hit him in the shoulder,” Katie said. “He’ll live. Or he won’t. It doesn’t matter. Me, my brother, and my daughter are going to hurt the three of you in ways you’ve never even imagined.”

“You’re not my mother,” Lucy said.

“I am, Lucy,” Katie nodded, lowering her weapon. “I had to give you up for adoption. Do you remember when I visited you at the playground? You were just a little girl. I promised I’d be back for you.” She kept nodding, and crying, finding herself unable to stop either. “And I did it. I found you. We’re all together again.”

“So you’re my mother, and he’s my uncle?” Lucy asked.

“Yes, baby.”

“Then who’s my father?”

L
ucy!” Donaldson exclaimed, swinging open the door.

But Lucy wasn’t there.

It was a pantry.

He gummed his lower lip, then went to check more rooms.

“Lucy!”

Bedroom.

“Lucy!”

Another bedroom.

“Lucy!”

Another goddamn bedroom. What was this place, a hotel?

“Lucy!”

“D?”

And there she was. His Lucy. Standing right there, like something out of a dream.

Her eye went wide. “D! You’re alive! I can’t believe you’re alive!”

“Donaldson?”

He turned. Saw some woman with a gun. “Do I know you?”

“You raped me, you son of a bitch.”

“You kinda need to narrow that down a little more.”

“You’re her father.”

Donaldson looked at Lucy. “Her father?”

“D?” Lucy said. “Dad?”

“Lucy is my kid?”

“Whoa,” said some guy who was hunched over and bleeding on the floor. “This is some fucked-up Jerry Springer shit right here.”

“Donaldson?” It was Jack Daniels talking now. “You were on top of the RV. How did you make it through the minefield?”

That was a minefield? Good thing he decided to avoid all those big white Xs painted on the ground.

“I can’t be stopped,” Donaldson said. “I’m indestructible.”

The woman with the gun fired twice, blowing out both of Donaldson’s knees. He fell over, and then she took a knife out of her pocket and cut him open from his catheter to his breastbone, and Donaldson watched in surprise as his insides became his outsides.

D
!” she screamed. Then she whirled on Katie. “You bitch!”

The razor in her hand, Lucy pounced, catching Katie deep on the side of her neck.

Katie turned to Lucy, an expression of shock forming on her face, as the arterial spray hit the ceiling.

K
atie

Sister

Mother

Beautiful

Father

Sweet Sweet

Hand

Pain

Hand Pain

HANDPAIN

Syrup

Syrup

Voices

Voices?

The sky

Voices in the sky

Sky machines

Beaming voices

Voices beaming

Crazy

Crazy?

Who, me, crazy?

Andy

Andrew

Luther

Andrew

Luther

Orson

Thomas

Thomas

Lucy

Lucy

Lucy

Katie

Sister

Katie

Sister

A ministering angel shall my sister be

SISTER

LUCY

LUCY

KATIE

SISTER

LUCY

DYING

SISTER

DYING

SISTER DYING

LUCY…

NECKTIE

S
he fell over, the whole world going wonky, and looked up just in time to see her brother hugging her daughter.

No… that wasn’t a hug.

Luther was slitting Lucy’s throat and yanking her tongue out through the newly made hole.

H
ow about that?
Lucy thought as she gagged.
A Columbian necktie actually is a horrible way to go.

H
e tried. He tried to crawl to his Lucy. He tried to crawl to his Lucy while pushing his insides back inside.

But someone was on him. Kneeling on his back.

The woman who cut him. She had a neck wound that looked pretty fatal, if he was any judge of fatal neck wounds, which he was.

Katie. He remembered her name was Katie. She was one of Ben and Winston’s girls.

“Gotta say, Katie. You haven’t aged well.”

Katie shoved her knife up inside him and stabbed his beating heart.

Well,
Donaldson thought.
Guess I’m not indestructible after all.