Mark of the Devil (22 page)

The sharp tingling of her hands and feet caused Ashley to open her eyes. It was the same feeling she got if she’d slept the wrong way and cut off circulation to one of her extremities. But this was both arms and both feet. And the odor: a harsh, acrid smell. Only one thing. The stub of a cigarette, still burning, its embers not quite extinguished in an ashtray on a bedside table.

The large, grayish, cloud-shaped water stain on the ceiling above her head, immediately over the full-size bed, seemed to flow in and out, like some colorless goop in a lava lamp. Instead of a blue sky, the background was a stippled white. The only light was from a single window. Its aging, dust-colored blinds, lowered to the sill, created a false twilight, more dusk than day. Late afternoon, the coming of evening, she guessed, but it was hard to tell. With what felt like a wooden mallet pounding deep inside her head and the cataract-like film over her eyes, she wasn’t sure of anything.

The stain cloud above her head, so far away, its sides billowing in one direction, then another, formed strange, psychedelic shapes which, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t identify. When she thought she had an idea, the cloud would immediately shrink into the distance, but it never left her narrowed field of vision. And then she remembered: the spare bedroom in Aunt Freddie’s house; the watermark on the ceiling left by the hurricane. How she’d gotten there, she didn’t know.
Who?
“My God!” she whispered to herself. “The ship, but this isn’t the ship. It’s…”

With the tingling sensation now bordering on pain, Ashley tried to move. First legs, but they refused to respond. Her arms, for some strange reason stretched up and back from her shoulders, also felt restrained. She pulled on each, but her effort only increased the pain. As though in slow motion, she tilted her head back into the pillow and turned it slightly upwards to determine what was holding her. Even though her vision was still wrapped in a veil of opaque fluid, what she saw and what it meant were as clear as day. “Oh, no,” she gasped.

Shifting her head as quickly as she could the other way and looking up, she saw the same thing. Both wrists were bound with gray duct tape, the tape then wrapped several times around sturdy wooden spindles in the headboard. She tilted her head forward and saw the same on her ankles, the tape twisted and stretched to reach the spindles on the footboard. Looking down the length of her body, she realized for the first time that she was naked, spread-eagle on the bed. “No-o-o-o!” Shaking her head back and forth and trying to jerk free from her bindings, she screamed until the band of ligaments that made up her vocal cords felt stretched to the breaking point and the membrane linings of her throat felt raw and acidic.

Without warning, the door burst open and two figures, dark blurs in her tear-flushed eyes, rushed across the room, one moving to each side of the bed. A light flashed on. From her right, a gloved hand swiped down from somewhere beyond her peripheral vision, landed hard on her forehead and forced her back into the pillow. Another hand, similarly covered, shot out from the same direction and jammed a wadded piece of cloth into her mouth before shoving her jaw shut to stop the screams.

From the other side of the bed, Ashley heard something
rippp,
then saw a hand—no, two hands, both wearing latex gloves. They reached across her face and slapped a wide swath of gray duct tape over her mouth, confining the scream to mid-throat. From the same direction, she heard, “Damn it, Striker, I told you we should’ve gagged her. You think you’re so tough, but you’re soft. Not like us. Not like Starla and me.”

“Get off my ass, Bruder. She coulda smothered to death.”

Over Ashley’s deep-throated moans and groans, Bruder answered, “You think she’s going out any easier?”

Striker unzipped his jacket and pulled his arms out of the sleeves. “Race told you Berkeley’s on his way, didn’t he?” Looking at his watch, he added, “Oughta be here in another fifteen, twenty minutes, so get your ass outta here and get ready.”

Bruder’s laughter was harsh and critical. “That’s all you’ve wanted, isn’t it? Fuck the bitch, and to hell with what we’re really trying to do. Right?”

“Go to hell, Bruder, you and that AC/DC sister of yours. Don’t tell me you’re not getting a little sisterly love on the side when she’s not slipping her tongue up some woman’s cunt.”

“Coarse bastard!”

“Someday,” Striker went on, ignoring Bruder’s remark, “ol’ Henry Shoemaker’s gonna get wise to what you two are doing. Like everything else, he thinks what’s down there is his, but you and sis, you’ve got other plans, don’t you?”

“What are you getting at?” Eric demanded, the anger in his voice filling the room.

“I’m not stupid, Bruder. The sub thing, you’re gonna cut him out, aren’t you?”

Ashley watched as Bruder backed from the room, the hate in his eyes magnified by the scowl on his face. At the same time, Striker walked to the door, slammed it, and moved back to the side of the bed. First his shirt, draped neatly with his jacket over the back and arms of a small wing chair near the door; then shoes and socks. The belt unbuckled; trousers off, folded and placed neatly on the chair’s seat. Striker stood at the end of the bed in his under shorts, the hair on his chest and shoulders dark and thick. As he removed a condom from its wrapper, he grinned and said, “Safety first.”

Tugging at her restraints and shaking her head slowly at first, then more rapidly as Striker moved to one side of the bed, Ashley’s “Please, no,” was little more than an inarticulate grunt. Over and over she begged as tears ran down her cheeks.

Striker stood beside the bed, his eyes digesting the curves of her body. Putting a latex-gloved hand on her thigh, he said, “Like I told you on the ship, lady, it’s part of the business.” He shrugged his shoulders as he pushed his shorts down and stepped free of the legs and elastic waistband. Working the condom over his growing erection, he wondered aloud, “To kill your husband, yeah, I understand, but this? Taking the long way around, but who am I to argue?”

Ashley let out a long wail that was muffled by the gag and tape on her mouth. “Yeah,” Striker nodded as though understanding what her cry was about. “One way or the other, you die. At some point, he dies, too, but this makes no sense unless it’s the boss lady’s way of getting back at you for deceiving her.” He laughed derisively. “And boy, did you have her fooled.”

As Striker’s hand started its upward movement along the inside of her thighs, Ashley twisted her body away from his touch as much as she could, at the same time trying to scream, but her efforts were futile. She fought him with her body until every ounce of strength was gone. Clenching her teeth and shutting her eyes tight against the weight of Striker’s body settling over her, she prayed,
Please, God, let me die. Please, now.

Submerged beneath his own grunts and groans as he forced his way into Ashley’s struggling body, Striker was deaf to the partial opening of the door. With a sneer on his face, Eric Bruder worked one hand against the other, forming a “cat’s cradle” with his fingers and making as snug as possible the fresh pair of latex gloves that stretched halfway to his elbows. That done, and with his own pistol tucked beneath his belt where he could get to it if needed, he stepped softly into the bedroom, reached into Striker’s jacket pocket, and pulled out the small pistol, silencer, and an extra ammunition clip. Very slowly, he screwed the silencer into the barrel with its blue-black finish, then stepped unseen to the foot of the bed and waited.

Dusk had settled over Jacksonville Beach as the taxi pulled in front of 617 Fourth Avenue North. Matt sat for a moment, staring at the house, not liking what he was seeing. The carport was empty; no lights from the front windows. Where was the Grand Cherokee? Had Ashley left it with Park? He shook his head. Her note said she hadn’t been able to get in touch with Steve. And if that was the case, how did she know when he was flying in? When to send the note? The note also said there were problems and to meet her at the house. And
the house
had to be Aunt Freddie’s.

Something was wrong. He’d had the same feeling with the barracuda the first day he’d found the barge and the submarine’s snorkel. A sense of potential danger crawled up his spine and made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

The taxi driver turned in his seat. “You okay, buddy?”

Matt did a rapid shake of his head to force himself back to reality. Reaching for the door handle, he mumbled, “Uh, yeah. Sorry. Here.” Matt passed three twenties over the back of the front seat to a waiting hand. “Keep the change. Flip the trunk lid, and I’ll get my luggage out.”

The driver raised an eyebrow before saying, “Trunk’s open. Been open.”

“Thanks,” Matt answered as he got out, closed the door, grabbed his luggage from the trunk, and slammed the lid shut. He stood at the end of the driveway studying the house as the taxi pulled away. Streetlights were beginning to come on, their dull, yellowish glow creating an eerie look to the street. Except for the red taillights of the departing cab, the rest of the neighborhood seemed to be frozen in time. No sounds, no movement. It was as though people, hiding behind shutters and drapes, were waiting to see what he was going to do.

“You’re damn well paranoid, Berkeley,” he directed at himself, but still, he couldn’t shake the feeling, almost a sixth sense he’d developed over the years. He moved cautiously through the empty carport and to the front door, listening for sounds and watching the window for any sign of life.

Locked or unlocked? Setting his luggage down, he tried the knob. It turned. With a shove, he pushed the door open and called, “Ashley?” He thought he heard something, a sound from the back of the house—one of the bedrooms—followed by silence. He looked back toward the street to make sure what he’d heard hadn’t come from there, but again, no sound, no movement. The street was dead.

Suddenly, from one of the bedrooms,
kerchunk, kerchunk!
Like a smoker’s cough, but Matt knew it wasn’t human. He’d heard it before; recognized it.
Gunfire! A silencer!

“Ashley!” Ignoring his own safety, he rushed through the living room and turned in to the hallway. Grabbing the doorframe, he stopped his forward motion long enough for a quick glance ahead and to the right. Bathroom door, open. No one there. Bedroom door to the right, open. Room empty. To his left, the second bedroom, door ajar. A moan and a third
kerchunk.

“Ashley-y-y!”

Using his shoulder as a battering ram, Matt burst through the door, his forward momentum carrying him to the foot of the bed. In the dim, yellowish glow of a single bedside lamp, he made out two figures on the bed, a man and a woman, both naked. The woman was spread-eagled on one side of the bed, arms and legs strapped to the bed’s foot and head. A dark spot marred her left cheek where a bullet had entered. Blood seeped over her chin and along her throat. Blood also created a dark flow from another hole in the lower part of her left breast. The man had a similar splotch in the right side of his chest, but he was moving, spitting up blood, trying to raise himself on one elbow.

From behind, a voice. “Good evening, Mr. Berkeley.” Immediately, something hard smashed against the back of Matt’s head, bending him forward over the wooden rail that ran across the top of the bed’s footboard. A ball of brilliant white light shot through his brain, ricocheting from front to rear and back to its point of origin. Stunned, yet conscious of the need to protect himself, Matt pushed up and swung around, but another blow caught him directly across the left ear and lower temple. Though there was no immediate pain, he heard and felt the crack of his cheekbone.

Already off balance, his feet flew out from under him, sending him crashing into the closet door. Fighting to get to his feet, he saw it coming through a bloodied left eye, tried to duck, but too late. A glancing blow off the top of his forehead drove him back against the closet door, slamming the back of his head against the door’s frame. He thought he heard a laugh from somewhere in the distance. It rippled through the fluids and tissues protecting his brain, submerging every thought but one. Survival! He fought against the darkness closing in, but it was no use. The last things he remembered were his shirt sleeve being unbuttoned and pushed up, and the sting of something penetrating the inside crook of his left elbow. A wide band of fire shot deep into his arm, followed by the sound of his own voice calling, “Ashley…Ashley…” It was like an echo, slipping further and further away into the distance until there was no sound, no feeling, and no Ashley.

Bruder calmly laid the hypodermic syringes—two syringes taped together to allow injection of two separate drugs at once—in an open, black leather briefcase along with the short metal rod he’d used on Matt. A cough from across the room alerted him that someone on the bed was still alive. Picking up the silenced semiautomatic pistol, he stood.

With one hand on his chest, the other over his mouth, trying to stem the flow of blood from his lung, Striker tried to push off the bed, using his left leg as a lever. “You fucking shot me, Bruder,” he rasped between coughs. “And with my own piece, you piece-of-Kraut-shit sonofabitch!” With each word spewing froths of blood from his lips, Striker threatened, “I’ll get you, goddamn it. I’ll tell Shoemaker—”

“I think not, Striker. It’s time for you to die, just like the Berkeley woman.” Bruder raised the pistol, holding it with both hands, and fired. Twice, three times.

As Striker twisted his body and tried to dive away, knocking over the night table and lamp as he went, the first bullet hit the wall. The second slammed into the fleshy part of Striker’s right shoulder, and the third entered just below the occipital bone at the rear of the skull, severing the brain stem in its path. It tore through the roof of Striker’s mouth, spraying blood, tooth and bone fragments onto the wall as he fell to the floor. With the twitching of his head and arms in a final death spasm, a crimson-coated cough from what was left of his throat was the last sound Striker made.

Bruder walked around the end of the bed to where Striker lay. Shoving the man’s shoulder backwards with the toe of one shoe until he could see what was left of Striker’s face, Bruder hissed, “Stupid Polack. Too bad you couldn’t have stayed on the bed. It would’ve made things so much easier.” Pointing downward, he fired the pistol’s remaining round through Striker’s forehead for good measure.

As he stood over Striker, staring at the man’s bulk, Bruder thought,
On the bed, or leave him on the floor?
He glanced at Ashley and made his decision. First, remove the duct tape from her wrists and ankles and make her look like she’d been startled by her husband finding her with another man. Then, place Striker on the bed, arm and body over the woman as though trying to protect her from an onslaught of bullets.

Once Bruder arranged Ashley in the position he wanted and heaved Striker back onto the bed, he stood back and admired his work. “Perfect,” he said aloud, “absolutely perfect.” He then turned toward Matt and added, “Now for you, Mr. Berkeley, before you decide to wake up.”

Pulling off the bloodstained latex gloves and dropping them into the briefcase along with the taped-together syringes, Bruder tugged on a fresh pair of gloves and removed a single hypodermic syringe. “You’re such an obstinate man, Mr. Berkeley, if what I’ve given you doesn’t immobilize you long enough, a little more of this certainly should.” With that, Bruder grabbed Matt’s left arm, squeezed just above the elbow to raise a blood vessel, then slid the needle into the vein, quickly emptying the syringe’s contents and pulling the sleeve back down and buttoning it at the wrist.

Placing the empty syringe in the briefcase, Bruder walked to the closet, removed two pillows, and threw them on the floor beside Matt. Next, he threw down a bundle of blankets he’d earlier folded into a tight bedroll at least three feet thick. He picked up the pistol and extracted the empty magazine, letting it drop into the briefcase, and slapped in another magazine loaded with seven rounds. With a rapid jerk on the pistol’s slide—back, then forward—shoving a bullet into the chamber, he placed the weapon in Matt’s right hand.

Wedging the roll of blankets and the two pillows, one in front of the other, against one leg of the bed, Bruder lifted Matt’s right arm, worked the index finger between the trigger guard and the trigger, and carefully wrapped Matt’s remaining fingers around the pistol’s plastic grip. Careful to place himself out of the right-hand trajectory of the spent shells, he then jammed the end of the pistol’s silencer against the pillows.

With the hammer thumbed into a cocked position and his own gloved hands on both sides of the pistol, Bruder pressed against Matt’s index finger and fired the weapon, seven times, until the hammer clicked against the firing pin. Making certain Matt’s hand had a firm grasp on the pistol, he removed the silencer, then laid arm, hand, and pistol on the floor beside Matt.

Speaking as though Matt could hear, Bruder said, “If not for dear old Brandy Mason wanting to keep you safe and alive and the fact we might still need her, your meddlesome wife would have already been dead and you would have been dead the minute you walked through the door.” Getting to his feet, he added, “But for now, you have your fingerprints on the pistol, gunpowder residue on your hand, and the so-called smoking gun in your possession.”

Bruder laughed, continuing, “The cuckolded husband finds his wife in bed with another man. He kills in a fit of anger and passion. Case solved…and no further interference from you. Rather brilliant, even if it was my sister’s idea.”

Bruder quickly unwrapped and spread the blankets flat, located the seven embedded copper-jacketed rounds he’d just fired, then gathered seven ejected shell casings from the floor, placing shells, bullets, and silencer in the black leather briefcase. With the briefcase and bullet-torn pillows resting in the middle of the blankets, he stood for a moment, looked around, and asked himself if there was anything else he needed to take. Seeing only empty shell casings from his initial round of firings, he pulled all four ends of the blankets together and swung the bundle over his shoulder.

With one hand, Bruder slipped a cell phone from his pocket, pressed the preprogrammed number
7
with his thumb, and punched the
talk
button. Two rings, a click, and “It’s done,” he announced. “Give it another fifteen to twenty minutes before he comes around. If he does, that is.” Bruder chuckled sourly. “I gave him an extra syringe for good measure, but that’ll be your problem, won’t it?” Without waiting for a reply, Bruder tapped the
end
button and shoved the phone back into his pocket.

Speaking to the room and, more pointedly, to Matt, Bruder said, “If they time things correctly, our guardians of the peace should find you, gun in hand, standing over your lovely wife…” He nodded toward Striker on the bed. “…and that insufferable excuse for human intelligence. Goodbye, Mr. Berkeley. It definitely has
not
been a pleasure.”