Blood Brothers (29 page)

He let go. And fast. Trista spun away from
him and went for the gun. Michael realized it not a moment too
soon. He ran and slid, as if he were sliding home. The tips of his
fingers brushed against the steel barrel, but he couldn’t find
purchase. Trista landed on his back, the impact knocking the wind
from his lungs. Her nails dug into his back, his neck, anywhere
they could do damage, they sank into. She spat words that should
never pass a lady’s lips. But none of that mattered. All he cared
about was getting her off, making her stop, making her still.

Fire, white and hot, lanced across his cheeks
as her nails serrated his flesh like warm butter.

He shot out with his right arm, the elbow
hitting her ribcage. He heard a satisfying crack as her ribs gave
way. He repeated the process. She toppled off him and he spurted
forward, toward the gun. She grabbed at his ankles, at his legs,
but he kept going. Just a little farther. Just another few
feet.

And then he had it. The gun rested snugly in
his hand. He gripped it tightly and rolled.

Trista was on him again, coming with teeth
bared and nails ready to strike. He didn’t have time to think, only
time to react. Trista’s hair billowed behind her as she flew
through the air like a wraith, like a phantom. She was, quite
simply, such a beautiful sight to behold. Beautiful and deadly.

Just as he had on the range many times
before, Michael looped his finger through the trigger guard,
threading it nimbly between the trigger and its housing. He did not
pull the trigger, he squeezed it.

Muzzle flash blinded him.

An explosion of red on Trista’s chest,
blooming, corrupting the white shirt. And then she was on him. Or
more aptly her body was. Falling dead weight. He let loose the gun
and worked his body out from under hers.

Kneeling beside her, he checked for a pulse,
expecting none. He was right. She was dead.

There was no time for remorse. She would have
killed him just as quickly. He still had things to do and sitting
here amidst the dead was not going to get it done.

After all, Trista wasn’t the first person he
had killed, and if he was right, she wouldn’t be the last.

***

Stephanie cracked her eyes open and stumbled
into a whole world of pain. An involuntary moan escaped her. She
was laying face up on something hard. It took her a moment to
realize it was a cold floor. Tile. Sticky. From what, she didn’t
even want to try and guess.

Sitting up was no easier for her than opening
her eyes.

She looked around, her vision not all that
blurry after a knock on the head, but she certainly wasn’t seeing
twenty-twenty. She’d no doubt suffered a concussion. She used the
wall behind her to help her to her feet. The room was small. A
bathroom. A toilet. A sink. A shower stall and bathtub combo.
Little else. No window, no closet.

The tile was cracked, a lot, and the grout
between the slate grey pieces was black, covered in mildew. The
paper on the walls was yellowed and peeling. The light fixture over
the sink looked about twenty years out of date.

She tried the door. It looked like one of
those shoddy, hollow-core ones, the cheapest in construction, but
upon closer examination, and a few knocks without echoes, she
discovered that it was quite substantial. She couldn’t budge it in
the least.

Things were not looking good for Stephanie
Cole. Nope, not at all.

She put her ear to the door and listened. For
anything. For any sign that she was not alone, wherever she was.
That someone was coming, or someone was not. She heard no
television, no radio, no footfalls or conversation. Nothing.

If that son of a bitch that kidnapped her had
left her alone, it wouldn’t be for long. She turned to the sink. It
sat on a vanity and she quickly started looking for anything she
could fashion into a tool to help her get through the door. The
knob was a cheap one, the kind with a hole in the center. Just a
thin straight piece of metal would allow her to manipulate the
mechanism.

That was if, by chance, there was nothing
barricading the door from the other side. She chose not to think
about that nasty little possibility. If something was blocking her
only means of egress, she would cross that bridge when she came to
it.

Then, something on the sink counter caught
her eye. Something very familiar to her.

A brown prescription bottle. She reached for
it almost as if by instinct. Grabbing the bottle, she read the
label: Eskalith.

Better yet, it was her bottle.

Eskalith was a brand of lithium, a very
important medicine to her. 300 milligrams of sanity in one
convenient tablet. She popped the top. Somehow she knew it would be
empty. She was wrong. It looked as if the remnant of her
prescription was present and accounted for. She poured several
tablets into her hand. They were Eskalith all right. And none
seemed to be have been tampered with. That made sense, if her
abductor wanted to poison her, he’d do it while she was still
unconscious. He wouldn’t wait for her to wake, would he?

And then a sensation overtook her. Should she
just put the damned lithium back in the bottle, or better yet,
flush it down the toilet, and just get back to the business of
saving her skin? Yes, that’s exactly what she should do.

But she knew as soon as her eyes had hit on
the lovely little bottle that she was already doomed. Doomed by her
own addiction.

She placed two tablets back in the bottle,
leaving three in the palm of her hand. That was a lot of lithium,
but then again, this was a very, very bad day.

***

Michael didn’t let the door knob hit him
where the good lord split him on the way out. As a matter of fact,
his feet hardly touched the ground as he ran for the Porsche.

Behind the wheel, he breathed deeply several
times, started the engine and threw the car into reverse. Pea
gravel spat up and pecked the shiny clear coat of the vehicle. He
clutched, threw the car into first gear and shot down the drive
like a cat with its tail on fire.

Michael knew he should call the police. He
knew it was the right thing to do. But he didn’t even reach for his
cell. What would he say? How would he say it? He’d come over to the
Reddick’s for a social call? Found their bodies and discovered the
Dominican woman who killed them and then he had to shoot her in
order to escape with his life? Yeah, that’d work for about two
seconds. That story would give them way too many questions,
questions Michael couldn’t, or wouldn’t answer.

The first, of course, was why; if he was
paying a visit, why was he armed with his Kimber automatic? There
was, of course, no easy way to explain that. And it didn’t take
proof or evidence for the police to detain you. All it took was the
shadow of a doubt. And Michael’s action would certainly provide
that to anyone.

He had to do something. To take charge of the
situation, not let the situation take charge of him.

Looking towards his own house, he saw the
housekeeper had yet to return home. Stephanie hadn’t either. It was
then that he wondered if she would ever come back home. Had a
bridge been burned that could never be rebuilt? Michael thought so.
And Christal. Poor, sweet Christal. What would she think of her
father if he went away for the rest of her childhood on a murder
conviction? That was what hurt Michael the most. His daughter was
perhaps, the thing he most loved in this world. No, that wasn’t
right. She was the thing he most loved in this world. How would she
look at him after all of this? She was not too young to understand
murder, betrayal, infidelity.

But that was neither here nor there. Jerry
and that bitch had been but a stone’s throw from him and his
family. Close enough to swoop in and do whatever he wished. But
that was just it, wasn’t it? He didn’t want to do anything to them.
He simply wanted to destroy Michael.

With the Porsche idling at the end of the
Reddick’s drive, Michael worked his brain to come up with
something, some kind of plan. It didn’t have to be the best one, or
even a good one, but he had to have something.

And then, like a spark of divine
intervention, he knew what he had to do.

***

Christal loved Saturdays. She liked Sunday’s
okay, but Saturdays were a lot better. Saturday was the first day
of the weekend, Sunday the last. Weekends meant no school, and
Christal didn’t like school all that much. Actually, she didn’t
like it at all. One reason she didn’t like school was that one
group of kids always picked on other kids. Even though she wasn’t
in their group they usually let her be, but they sure weren’t nice
to her, either.

But when she was out of school, her mom, dad,
and Mrs. Wylder treated her so much nicer than her classmates.
While she knew her mother and father were very busy people,
especially her dad, Christal didn’t hold that against them. Like
they always told her, if you want to be a success in life, you have
to work hard. She believed that. And while there weren’t too many
things that Christal thought she was a success at, she worked hard
learning piano.

That’s why days like this, in town, shopping
with Mrs. Wylder were so much fun. Already, they’d been for lunch
and stopped for ice cream. Christal liked ice cream. It didn’t
really matter what flavor, though mint chocolate chip was her
favorite. Mrs. Wylder liked butter pecan. That was okay, and
Christal had eaten it before, but if she ever got it again it would
be because they were out of everything else.

It was afternoon and Christal and Annie
Wylder made their way downtown. Walking, they swooped in most every
little shop they came to. Sometimes buying nothing, sometimes
loading up. Mrs. Wylder had already said if they kept this up,
they’d have to return to the car and put up some of these
purchases. But Christal didn’t want to, not yet. They were getting
close to her most favorite store of all, the Sugar and Spice
Boutique. Sugar and Spice was a very neat store made especially for
little girls. They had dolls, dresses, toys, ribbons, and even a
little play center for the younger kids.

“Are you getting tired?”

“No, ma’am,” Christal said. “I’m fine.”

Mrs. Wylder looked down at her. “Well, I am.
Wait until you get to be my age, kiddo. You’ll wonder what happened
to all that energy you used to have. Makes you wish you could
bottle it up and save it for a rainy day.”

“Do you want to go back?” she asked. Of
course, Christal didn’t want to, but she knew that Mrs. Wylder
couldn’t walk for a long time like she was young. She’s a very
pretty woman for her age, Christal thought. Even though Mrs. Wylder
still looked very attractive, she wasn’t young, hadn’t been for a
very long time. She wondered if there would be a day soon when she
wouldn’t be able to take care of Christal. Thinking about that made
her sad. Really sad.

“No, sweetie. Not yet. I think I’ve got just
enough juice left in me for one more stop. What do you think? The
used bookstore or…Sugar and Spice?”

“Sugar and Spice. Sugar and Spice,” Christal
almost screamed, hopping up and down.

Mrs. Wylder smiled. “I thought so.”

So that’s where they went. It was only half a
block down and since they stopped at no other stores, they got
there pretty soon. Mrs. Wylder held the door while Christal went
right on in.

The boutique was shaped like a rectangle; not
very wide but so deep that one could easily lose themselves in the
racks and shelving, displays and merchandise dump tables—especially
if that someone was just over four feet tall. Glitter, faux fur,
neon lighting and soft music played through concealed speakers made
this place a fantasy wonderland for children.

Christal made her way to the side of the
store and moved her way to the back, where the newest products were
always displayed. Because by displaying them all they way back
there, it gave you a chance to check out the other stuff, a very
common, and very effective marketing ploy used almost everywhere.
Christal was hoping to find the latest outfit ensembles for her
stuffed baby doll, Anna. Anna was, of course, named after Annie
Wylder.

Unfortunately, what she found were masks,
costumes, face paint, and novelty magic wands, glass slippers and
the like. Halloween was still a good piece away, but Christal
assumed it was close enough to start selling. With the thought of a
new wardrobe for Anna momentarily forgotten, Christal started
looking around, thinking about what she would like to be this
Halloween.

She’d been a princess last year. A witch the
year before that. Before then, she couldn’t quite remember. She
found a small pair of pom-poms on a hook and had the great idea to
be a cheerleader. That would be really cool.

“Well, Cindy, look who it is, Christal Cole.
The richest girl in the whole world.” The voice, which Christal
quickly recognized as Bethany Yager’s, dripped with sarcasm, though
Christal didn’t exactly know what sarcasm meant. Christal put on a
smile, like Mrs. Wylder always said she should, and turned.

“Bethany, Cindy. How are you doing?”

Cindy was a thick little girl with short
choppy brown hair and skin that looked like she always had a bad
sunburn. Bethany, on the other hand, was a very pretty little girl
if not for the little smile she always had on her face. Chrystal
knew that smile was phony but didn’t understand why Bethany always
smiled like that. Maybe someone should tell her it wasn’t very
ladylike, but not Christal. Christal didn’t know either girl very
well. They were all three in the same class, but Christal wasn’t
very outgoing and preferred staying to herself. To put it simply,
they didn’t share rides on the see-saw.

Since starting kindergarten, Christal had
been dealing with what she called “meanies.” These meanies said
mean stuff to her, not because of anything she’d done, but because
her father had a whole lot of money. She was very proud of her
daddy, but sometimes she wished he was just a normal daddy who
worked for someone else. Many people had money in Benedict and a
whole lot didn’t. But as far as she knew, nobody had as much money
as her daddy, Michael Cole.