Ultimate Thriller Box Set (153 page)

Authors: Blake Crouch,Lee Goldberg,J. A. Konrath,Scott Nicholson

BOOK: Ultimate Thriller Box Set

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“You would have killed her if I hadn’t gotten to it first.”

“Well, you beat me at one thing, I reckon.”

The Johnny Cash was winding down in a repetitive guitar riff. Joshua stopped the car and killed the engine. “Here we are.”

He opened his door and the dome light blinked on. Renee could hear the river churning below. She recalled her drive over the bridge and pictured the water thirty feet below. It wasn’t a far enough fall to kill her unless her head hit a rock. But bad luck followed the Wells family.

And, sometimes, you had to make your luck.

Joshua left the door open after he exited, and the dome light cast a dirty yellow glow. Jacob grabbed Renee’s wrist, his face a mask of wicked joy. She didn’t struggle. These two men had already torn her to shreds. There was nothing left worth fighting over.

Joshua opened the back door. “Bring her on.”

Jacob’s Southern accent returned, a bizarre replica of his brother’s. “Reckon we ought to bash her head in first, or just chuck her over the side?”

“You want to make sure. It ain’t the kind of thing you leave up to chance. What if she turns up alive six miles downstream?”

“That would be sand in the craw, all right.”

“You do it. You’ll enjoy it more than I will.”

“Why, thanks, Josh. I appreciate it.”

“I’m Jacob, remember? Don’t go getting all confused on me, or we’ll never get the story straight.”

“Right, Jake. You’re the Wells now. I’m just pig shit, rolling around with a Mexican whore in a Tennessee trailer park.”

“And you’re going to love every minute of it. I know I did, but now it’s time for the big switcheroo.”

Jacob’s hand tightened around Renee’s wrist, sending sparks of pain up her arm. Joshua handed his brother something, and Renee saw its rusty bulk in the dome light.

A pipe wrench.

She could almost see the police report:
Blunt head trauma, followed by asphyxiation due to drowning.

Jacob’s latest accidental victim.

And who would be next? Joshua? Carlita? Or would he plant more seed, each sprout insured for a million dollars?

“Hold her for a sec.” Joshua got out of the driver’s side and went to the back door. He yanked it open and leaned in, his breath sour with beer and cigarettes and the lingering tang of salsa. “Come here, sweetie.”

Renee backed away, kicking, until she was across the seat. Joshua climbed in, and now she recognized that perverse grin, one glimpsed in the dim light of a night nearly a decade ago. The night of Mattie’s conception.

She shoved her foot toward his face. He caught it and his eyes twinkled in the greasy dome light, the cut on his forehead oozing blood again. “Hmm. She still got a little fight in her. Tempting me to go one more round. What say, brother, wanna watch just for old times’ sake?”

Jacob yanked her wrist. “I can fantasize about it later. Right now, we better get her in the river.”

Joshua’s face sagged, his smoker’s wrinkles deepening. “Reckon so. Give the water more time to wash away evidence.”

“Besides, we’ll still have Carlita.”

Renee wondered if they would play this sick game the rest of their lives. Swapping partners, playing with money and murder, tricking each other. But that was the future. She had none.

Joshua dragged her by the ankle. She grabbed for the armrest but it came off in her hand. Her fingernails broke as she clawed at the nylon seat covering. No saving grip there.

Jacob released her and got out of the car to join his brother. She knew this was her final chance. The passenger door was open, though it seemed miles away.

She twisted upward, reaching for the front seat, but Jacob had her other leg now and she was being worried between them like a butcher-shop bone in the mouths of two dogs.

“Treat her like a wishbone, brother,” Jacob said.

“I’m wishing for two million goddamned dollars. On three. One . . . ”

She wriggled, nothing.

“Two . . . ”

“Jacob,” she said. “Honey?”

But the word was a lie. Even his name was a lie. He had always been Joshua.

“
Three.
”

She was jerked into the moist night.

“Do her,” Joshua said.

He had Renee pinned to the rail, shoulders leaning toward the river, facing the whispering, frothing water below. Jacob tested the heft of the pipe wrench. How would she hit if she had actually fallen?

No, not “if.” When.

Think it out, Jakie, just like always. Momma’s cane . . . an accident. Could have happened to anybody. Anybody with a murderous son, that is.

Christine. That one had been the saddest. But she was barely formed, not even talking. All I did was save her from the life of a Wells. So that was a mercy killing.

Mattie. Too bad about her. But she was Joshua’s fault all the way, from sperm to burn victim.

The moon was out, the clouds like violet sheep counting down to a restless sleep. He wondered if blood would spatter onto the bridge railing. He’d have to strike her at an angle, so the pattern would fly out and into the water.

“Smash her up,” Joshua urged. “Just like you did the chickens.”

The wrench grew heavy in Jacob’s hand. “I didn’t do the chickens.”

Joshua, holding Renee’s arms behind her back, his crotch pressed against her rear, gave a thrust of his hips, causing the wooden railing to squeak with their combined weight. “Hell, yeah. You went donkeyshit, brother. Chopping their heads off, licking blood from the hatchet—”

“Stop it.”

Red
. The night had gone from purple to red.

“You’re one sick fuck, all right.”

“Shut up. That wasn’t me. It was never me.”

“Tell it to the judge. I got a date with two million bucks.”

“I was only doing what you’d do, if you had the brains.” Jacob gripped the wrench so tight his hand hurt. The metal was slick with his sweat. He thought of the fingerprints he would leave behind. And the DNA, which he shared with Joshua. The DNA one of them had passed to Mattie.

And maybe Christine. He didn’t know how often Joshua had slipped into his bed over the years.

The blood in the Chevy would be Joshua’s. The cops would figure it out. Even though Jacob had the same blood.

“Do it, Jakie,” Renee wheezed from constricted lungs. “Just like we talked about.”

Joshua turned toward him, his face as twisted as the rubberized troll heads hanging from the rearview mirror. Confusion. The dumb bastard had been late out of the womb, and had always been two steps behind his entire life.

Jacob swung the wrench.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Blood everywhere,” Jacob said, mopping at the stains on the railing.

“No murder is perfect,” Renee said. She wanted to vomit, but her gut was like a clenched fist. “You taught me that, if nothing else.”

“I can’t help it if you’re lousy at choosing.”

“I guess you should go get Carlita. Think you guys will be happy together?”

“What do you care? You’re getting what you want.”

“You don’t know what I want.”

Jacob leaned over the railing. “He’ll be downriver soon. As drunk as he was, nobody will question a fall.”

Renee glanced at her husband’s exposed neck, alabaster in the moon’s warm glow. The wrench lay on the seat of the Chevy. She could have it out and bring it down in a matter of seconds.

She loved him.

When you loved somebody, you owed him.

“Mattie,” she said, her voice breaking a little. The rush of the kill had faded, leaving her feeling washed out and limp. Her heart was a husk rattling against her dry ribs.

Maybe all the tears were gone forever.

Jacob came to her, took her hands. He almost kissed her. Then he glanced up at the hill, where the Wells house stood dark and brooding, as if remembering some memory tucked in a far, dusty closet. The first flickers teased the windows, and smoke drifted on the air. Davidson and her crew would be on the way soon, late as always, left to sift through the ashes of the Wells family secrets.

He reached into the car, grabbed the wrinkled pack of cigarettes, and stuffed one in his mouth. He lit it, then reached under the seat and pulled out a beer. Warm, it sprayed foam all over his pants when he pulled the tab. He reached up and tapped the twin rubber heads, sending them swinging.

Just like Joshua. He looks just like his brother
.

And on the heels of that thought came another, rising bright and strong from the murk of her confusion.

What if we killed the wrong one?

But maybe there was no right one.

Renee looked over the rail. In the gloom, she could barely make out the broken form on the rocks below.

“Oh, God, Jake, he’s moving. He’s still alive!”

Jacob ran to the railing, cigarette smoke pluming from his mouth along with his whispered “Shit.”

He leaned over, straining against the darkness. “I don’t see nothing.”

“I do,” she said. “I see it all now.”

The wrench was heavy. But she managed. Oh, yes, she managed.

The
crunch
was subdued, like hitting a bag of ice wrapped in a towel. Jacob gave a small bleat of surprise and collapsed onto the rail, head and arms trailing over the far side.

She didn’t check his pulse. She didn’t want to touch him. If he took a long time to die, he deserved it.

She patted her belly.

She’d never mentioned it to Jacob. Three months along.

Whether it was Jacob’s or Joshua’s, she would never know.

But it didn’t matter. One Wells was as good as another.

And a Wells never fails.

As she headed up the dirt road to free Carlita, she glanced at the house, the orange flames now rising to heaven in a wavering thread.

I love you, Mattie. I love you, Christine.

She was relieved to see the burning house blur in her vision.

She was still human, if only barely.

As long as she could cry, there was hope for her yet.

Renee staggered across a land long polluted and ruined, tears streaming down her cheeks. The tears wouldn’t wash away the past, but they might clear her vision for the future.

She had a child to raise.

One last chance.

THE END

About Scott Nicholson

Table of Contents

ABOUT J.A. KONRATH

J.A. Konrath is the author of seven novels in the Jack Daniels series, along with dozens of short stories. The eighth, STIRRED, will be available in 2011.

Under the name Jack Kilborn, he wrote the horror novels AFRAID, ENDURANCE, TRAPPED, SERIAL UNCUT (written with Blake Crouch) and DRACULAS (written with Blake Crouch, Jeff Strand, and F. Paul Wilson.)

Under the name Joe Kimball, he wrote two novels in the TIMECASTER sci-fi series which feature Jack Daniels's grandson as the hero, and Harry McGlade III. Visit Joe at
http://www.JAKonrath.com
.

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