An Evil Mind--A Suspense Novel (20 page)

Sam stepped down the porch and walked about seventy feet from the house to get a better view of the surroundings. Crickets’ soothing chirping was the only sound he could hear.

At least a hundred and fifty yards separated Pruitt’s mansion from the house on the left and three hundred yards from the one on the right. There was a thick wall of trees about two hundred yards behind Pruitt’s mansion, which stretched from one side of the lot to the other. Sam was relieved to find that none of the neighbors could have heard the gunshots, at least not without trespassing on Pruitt’s land.

Sam felt fresh and invigorated when he went back inside.

“Now let’s talk about our money,” Sam said to Pruitt. “I want you to wire the twenty million to our account right now.”

Pruitt touched his swollen lower lip and then said, “I don’t have it.”

“You don’t have twenty million?”

“No,” Pruitt said with an apologetic smile.

“You mean you don’t have it in cash?”

Pruitt shook his head. “My net worth is less than twenty million.”

“You were worth three hundred million,” Jeff said. “What happened to that money?”

“My companies have been losing money for the last three years. Also, I’ve made some bad investments.”

Sam frowned. “Sell your stocks.”

“They’re worth only two million dollars.”

“How much cash do you have in the bank?”

“About two hundred grand.”

“How much are your houses worth?” Jeff asked.

“I have about eight million in equity.”

Even at fire-sale prices it would take Pruitt at least two weeks to sell his houses, which was too long.

“Why the fuck did you agree to do this if you didn’t have the money?” Sam yelled.

It was a rhetorical question, and Sam knew the answer. Pruitt had intended to screw them over. The son of a bitch had thought he was dealing with pushovers. Well, the joke was on him.

“I’m sorry.” Pruitt smiled. “I’m very sorry, Jake.”

“Motherfucker.” Jeff hit him in the stomach.

Pruitt grunted and doubled over, wincing.

“How long will it take to sell the stocks?” Sam asked.

“It takes the funds three business days to clear,” Pruitt said.

Three business days? Jesus Christ!

“So if you sell them now, you’ll get the money on Friday?”

“Yes. We can wait here. I won’t cause any trouble, I promise.”

Sam looked at Jeff. His father shrugged.

“Are you expecting anyone to come here?” Sam asked Pruitt.

“No.”

“What about the housekeeper?”

“I suspended the service for three weeks.”

“Your wife—can she show up here?”

“No. I told her my friend was staying at this house. I was going to keep you here for a few weeks.”

“If she shows up, I’ll kill her. Do you care about your wife?”

“Yes.”

“Good. By the way, did you tell her about the procedure?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Where does your son live?” Jeff asked.

“He lives with me. But he wants to get his own apartment.” 

“Let’s go to the study,” Sam said.

In the study, Jeff turned on the computer and told Pruitt to show them his bank accounts.

“How many accounts do you have?” Jeff asked.

“Four.”

“Do you have offshore bank accounts?” Sam asked.

“I have one with a bank in the British Virgin Islands.”

“So you have five bank accounts?” 

“No, I have four—three in America and one in the British Virgin Islands.”

When Pruitt logged into his first American bank account, Sam saw that the total account balance was $40,592.66. There was $62,663.69 in Pruitt’s second American bank account. Pruitt had a little over thirty grand in his third American bank account and seventy-two grand in his offshore account. The combined total for all four accounts was over two hundred and five thousand dollars.

“I’d type faster if you took off the handcuffs,” Pruitt said.

“We’re not in a hurry,” Sam said. “Now show us your trading account.”

Pruitt opened the login page of his brokerage website, typed in his username and password, and pressed the Enter button.

The value of Pruitt’s account’s net assets was $2,000,163.53. Looking at the screen, Sam wondered if this was Pruitt’s only trading account.

They could torture Pruitt until he told them about his other trading accounts, but Sam had no desire to do it (mainly because he wanted to be done with this as soon as possible). Two million two hundred thousand dollars was enough; it was a fraction of what he had planned to make, but it was nothing to sneeze at. As they say, best is the enemy of good.

They would find another rich guy with a terminally ill kid by the end of the year, Sam was sure of it.

“Sell them all,” Sam said.

As he entered sell orders for his stocks, Pruitt said, “Are you guys hungry? There’s food in the fridge.”

Sam realized that he hadn’t eaten since noon, and his stomach growled.

When Pruitt finished placing sell orders, Sam pulled out the piece of paper with the name of their bank and their account number, put it on the desk, and said, “I want you to transfer to this account all the money from your bank accounts. You can leave a grand in each account.”

“Okay.” Pruitt nodded.

1

After Pruitt initiated the money transfers, Sam handcuffed his arms around a leg of the coffee table in the great room. At midnight Sam logged into their account at Cayman Commercial Bank to see if the money had arrived.

The account balance hadn’t changed.

“How long will it take the money to hit our account?” Sam asked Pruitt.

“A couple of days.”

Two days.

Two
business
days. If Pruitt wired the two million dollars received from the sale of his stocks on Friday, they would get the money on Tuesday.

They should stay here at least until Monday night, just in case.

Sam switched off the computer, then went to the window, opened the drapes, and looked out toward the road.

Had the neighbor’s surveillance cameras caught his father’s car entering Pruitt’s driveway? They might have. Were they powerful enough to read the license plate?

Suppose the police found out Jeff had visited Pruitt in Bartonville. What would he tell them when they asked him about the purpose of that visit?

He would say that he had pitched Pruitt an idea and that he hadn’t seen Ryan and Patrick.

Sam turned around, and his eyes fell on Patrick’s body. They’re going to start stinking soon, he thought.

They had to take the corpses out of the dining room.

Sam put on the dishwashing gloves he had found in the kitchen, and said to Jeff, “Let’s move the bodies to the library.”

“That’s a good idea,” Jeff replied. To Pruitt, he said, “Don’t try anything funny.”

As they carried Ryan’s body, Sam saw that Jeff had a preoccupied look on his face.

“What are you thinking about, Dad?” Sam asked.

They entered the library and laid the body on the floor by the sofa.

“I’m not sure about this,” Jeff said.

“What’s not to be sure about?”

They walked out of the room.

“I don’t think we should take his money.”

“Why?”

“It’s too risky. Let’s just waste this guy and go find someone else.”

“It’s not that risky.”

“The cops are going to know we got the money. They’re going to ask questions.”

They picked up Patrick’s body—Sam grabbed his legs and Jeff his arms—and headed for the library.

“No one’s going to ask any questions, Dad. Besides, he already wired us two hundred grand.”

“I’m talking about the two million. Let’s take it in cash. No wires. Two million will fit in a suitcase.”

“What if he calls for help while he’s in the bank?”

“Good point.” Jeff yawned.

“If the cops start asking questions, we’ll get new bodies.”

“Yeah.” Jeff smiled. “Great idea.”

After wiping off the blood that had dripped onto the floor from the bodies, Sam asked Jeff, “How did you find me?”

Pruitt, who lay on the couch across from them, raised his head from the pillow.

“I put a GPS tracker on this motherfucker’s car last Saturday. You see, I didn’t trust this guy.”

“How long did you wait for me by his house?”

Jeff had given Sam a ride to Pruitt’s place and been supposed to take him home after the meeting.

“An hour.”

Sam volunteered to watch over Pruitt tonight. Before Jeff retired to the bedroom, Sam, wearing the dishwashing gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints, went to the garage and took the keys to the Ford Explorer.

2

The next day Sam loaded all of their computers except one into the trunk of Jeff’s Cadillac.

On Thursday, December 7, Sam logged into their offshore bank account and saw that all the transfers made by Pruitt had cleared. Now they were two hundred grand richer.

The plan had begun to pay off.

Thanks to the ritual, they would become millionaires in just five days.

The ritual had saved him from execution. The ritual was going to make him wealthy.

It was August 2 of last year that his father had first told him about the ritual. The ritual instructions were written on the piece of paper that was glued to a page in the three-hundred-year-old French book on black magic Jeff had bought at an antique book store in New York. At first they were reluctant to test the ritual themselves. They gave the instructions to a man named Douglas Fleming so he would try the ritual and find out if it worked. Unfortunately, Fleming got caught and was sentenced to life imprisonment. They hadn’t heard from him after his arrest, which meant that either Fleming hadn’t swapped bodies with a cellmate or the guy he had switched bodies with hadn’t been released yet.

The first person they had sacrificed was a fifteen-year-old girl named Jennifer. Sam killed her in Toronto on October 29 of last year. She was cute and slim and had nice breasts. His friends Mickey and Frank Garrison were the first people they had tried the ritual on. Mickey and Frank were twenty-two years old and resided in Fort Worth at the time. Sam had chosen them because they were identical twins (he figured switching bodies was not going to affect their lives). He performed the ritual in his house on the night of November 13, after the Garrisons fell asleep. When Mickey woke up the next morning, he had been astonished to discover that he was wearing Frank’s clothes and Frank his and that his cross tattoo had moved from his forearm to Frank’s.  

Sam told Jeff that the transfers had cleared, and his father high-fived him.

“Are you going let me go as soon as I wire you the two million?” Pruitt asked.

“No. We’ll let you go when the money hits our account,” Sam said.

“Why?”

“Because we’re afraid you’ll cancel the transfer. You’re not a trustworthy person, Eric.”

3

On Friday, Pruitt received the proceeds from the sale of his stocks. As he typed their bank account number into the wire transfer form, Pruitt said, “How do I know you’re not going to kill me after I wire the money?”

“I told you we’re businessmen, not killers,” Sam said. “We’ll let you go on Tuesday, I give you my word.”

After sending the wire, Pruitt called his wife and told her that he would be back on Tuesday.

The next morning Sam asked Pruitt if he knew any rich people with terminally ill children.

“Yes, I do,” Pruitt said.

“Tell me their names.”

“You want to offer them your services?”

“Yes.”

“I know one guy. His name’s Andrew Broder. He runs a hedge fund. He’s worth three hundred and fifty million. His son has leukemia.”

“What’s the name of his fund?” Sam opened the notepad to a blank page. 

“Prism Capital.”

Sam jotted Broder’s name and the name of his fund down on the notepad. “What’s his phone number?”

“It’s in my cellphone.”

Sam took out Pruitt’s phone, pressed the Home button, and said, “What’s the code?”

“Four, nine, three, eight.”

Sam entered the code. He found one Andrew Broder on Pruitt’s contact list. He showed the record to Pruitt and asked, “Is this him?”

“Yes.”

Sam wrote down Broder’s number. “Does he live in Dallas?”

“He lives in Highland Park.”

“If he wants to talk to one of our previous clients, will you talk to him?”

Pruitt hesitated, and then said, “Okay. But don’t tell him I gave you his name.”

“Sure. I can pay you a finder’s fee, if you want.”

“How much?”

“Five percent. Do you want it?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know any rich people with terminally ill parents?”

“Yes. Gavin Holden. His mother has cancer. He’s worth two hundred million. His company’s name is Advanced Distribution.”

“Does he love his mom?”

“I think he’ll pay at least ten million to save her life.”

“Ten million. Nice. Is his number in your phone, too?”

“Yes.”

Sam found Gavin Holden’s number and added it to the list.

“Anyone else?” he asked.

“Nathan Marsh. A hundred and fifty million. His father has cancer. His company’s name is MKB Property Holdings.”

Pruitt had Nathan Marsh’s contact information in his phone.

“How much do you think he’ll pay?” Sam asked after writing down Marsh’s number.

“I’d say seven million.”

“Anyone else?”

“That’s it.”

“Okay. Thank you, Eric.” Sam ripped out the sheet with the phone numbers, folded it, and put it in his pants pocket. “You know what they call cancer? The great equalizer.”

4

Sam logged into their account at Cayman Commercial Bank, and when he saw the balance, his heart began to pound with excitement. He had $2,225,450 in his account (of this amount, twenty five thousand dollars had been deposited when Sam opened the account).

Sam drew in a deep breath and exhaled.

They were millionaires! They were fucking millionaires!

He pumped his fist in the air victoriously.

It was time to take care of Pruitt.

He glanced at his watch. 12:31 p.m.

Sam went into the kitchen, put on the latex gloves he’d purchased at the local grocery store, and poured three mugs of coffee. From his pocket, he withdrew a plastic zipper bag, which contained eight crushed Xanax pills and ten crushed Ambien pills, and dumped its contents into Pruitt’s mug. He stirred Pruitt’s coffee with a spoon for half a minute to make sure that the drugs completely dissolved. Then he put the mugs on a tray, pulled off the gloves, picked up the tray, and went to the great room.

“Coffee’s here,” he announced as he gave Jeff his mug.

“Did you check your account?” Pruitt asked.

Sam grabbed his mug and set the tray on the coffee table.

“Yes, I did.”

“Has the transfer cleared?”

“No. I’ll check again in a couple of hours.”

“Are you going to let me go? Tell me the truth.”

“Yes, we’ll let you go.”

“Do you remember what you have to do with the bodies?” Jeff asked.

“Yes. Bury them.”

Pruitt finished his coffee at one o’clock and fell asleep ten minutes later. They carried him to the master bedroom, where they stripped him naked. The plan was to drown Pruitt in the tub in the master bathroom. The police would conclude that his death was either a suicide or an accident.

Mister Pruitt murdered his associates and then committed suicide out of remorse.

Sam took Jeff’s Glock, removed the magazine, and ejected the bullet from the chamber. Then he emptied the magazine, put all the cartridges in his pocket, wiped the magazine with a towel and snapped it back into the pistol. After wiping the gun, Sam wrapped Pruitt’s right hand around its grip so Pruitt’s fingers would leave prints.

“Put some fingerprints on the barrel,” Jeff advised.

Sam nodded, closed Pruitt’s hand around the barrel of the Glock for a few seconds, and then put the gun on the nightstand.

Jeff fetched Pruitt’s mug, and Sam wiped it and planted Pruitt’s fingerprints all over it. He did the same with Ryan’s and Patrick’s phones. He also planted Pruitt’s prints on a plastic baggie that had five Xanax pills in it. He placed the mug and the bag with Xanax on the nightstand.

“Did you touch the coffeemaker without gloves?” Sam asked.

“No.”

They put Pruitt in the tub in the master bathroom and turned on the water.

“Did you touch anything here without gloves?” Sam asked.

He should wash the tray and his and Jeff’s mugs.

“I wiped everything I touched without gloves.”

When the water reached the overflow drain, Sam grabbed Pruitt’s arms and Jeff pushed his head underwater. Pruitt struggled for about a minute, jerking his legs and trying to free his arms, and then stopped moving.