Kick (The Jenkins Cycle Book 1) (32 page)

“I earned that money, not you!” she said. “You didn’t have to sleep with anyone. I didn’t mind Nate, but Rob’s a sweaty pig.”

“Come on, I did stuff too,” I said.

Erika snorted.

“Yeah, like what?”

“I had to watch that tape with you and Nate—total gross-out theater.”

A moment passed where I was sure I almost got shot. I wondered why I said stuff like that when people were pointing guns at me.

I raised my hands and said, “Ok, fine, ten million. You’re right, it’s more than enough. We’ll meet at the mall or something. When the heat’s off.”

Calmly, Erika slipped the pistol into her purse and zipped it closed. Just like that, we were friends again.

I couldn’t help wondering how long the police would take to identify the corpse in Nate’s bedroom. I definitely didn’t want to be here after that.

Erika said, “I wasn’t lying when I said I needed help finding that camera. This place is so messy it could be anywhere. It’s little, about as big as your fist.”

I needed to get out of there, but that camera was the only solid evidence of her crimes. Looking at her—still pretty if you ignored the reptile staring out from behind her ice-blue eyes—I could tell she’d be hard to convict. I could imagine the story she’d weave. How Rob forced her to do what she did. Rob, with his strip club. Juvenile criminal turned exploiter of women. Erika’s lawyer would make her the victim in all this. And Nate, if he lived, wouldn’t remember any of it.

“Well, get to it,” Erika said. “It’s in here somewhere. I have to leave but I’ll be back, so stay put.”

I felt suddenly cold.

“What do you mean? Where are you going?”

“You know about Tim, right?”

I nodded.

“Yeah. The other brother—the good one.”

“Little queer, you mean,” Erika said, snorting like a piggy. “That lump of a dead husband told me brother Timmy’s in the will. He’s supposed to get half—can you believe it?”

I just looked at her, hating her for the wrecking ball she was in these people’s lives. At first, I thought Rob had manipulated her into all this. But the more I thought about it the more it seemed the other way around. Erika was a piece of work, and Rob would have been easy prey for someone with her looks and intelligence.

“Half, huh?”

“Yeah, what a retard. And you know where the rest is going?”

“Haven’t the foggiest.”

Snorting like it was the funniest thing, Erika said, “Some kids’ hospital. I about died when he told me. He said he’d change the will after the wedding, give him a smaller piece, but I don’t do promises. I’d be counting the days until he remembered, trying to think of new ways to remind him. No thanks.”

“Totally weird,” I said.

“Don’t forget the basement,” she said, then turned to leave.

“Erika, wait.”

“Christ, what is it now?”

“Are you sure you have time for this? Ticktock, remember?”

Erika looked at me and shook her head.

“I read this article,” she said, “about this man who woke up and found his wife dead in the kitchen. Aneurism or something, doesn’t matter. You know what he did?”

“Killed her gay brother?”

Erika rolled her eyes.

“No, dick. He took the body, put it in bed like she was sick and spent the next couple months making it breakfast, lunch and dinner. Like she was still alive—washing its hair, changing its clothes. Eventually, someone complained about the stink.”

I laughed.

“Seems like a lot of work,” I said, “but if that’s what you want—”

“—Would you shut up for a minute? The point is, when something like that happens people go into shock. Everyone knows that. Tomorrow morning, I go walking down the road, naked, covered in blood with, like, no expression on my face, acting all out of it just like that man in the story. Someone calls the cops and they treat me like a victim.” She flourished her hands like a magician’s reveal. “Then I’ll be rich.”

Desperately, I tried to think of something wrong with her plan, anything to get her to change her mind. But it was a good plan, dammit. Why couldn’t she just be crazy? Why did she have to be crazy and smart, too?

Giving it one last try, I said, “You’re going to be a widow—I’m sure the state will give you something. Heck, Tim’s decent enough—he’d give you a few million, at least.”

Erika grimaced, shaking her head.

“The state won’t give me shit if it isn’t in the will. And Tim hates me. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life dodging private detectives.”

I didn’t know Tim that well, but I had to agree with her—he didn’t like her at all. I couldn’t believe it: she was going to kill Tim.

I felt sick.

This is it, buddy. This is why you’re here.

My pulse quickened and my hands grew clammy as I forced myself to breathe, in and out. Deeply, calmly.

“Give me about an hour to finish this,” Erika said. “You find that camera and we’ll both be rich.” Then she flashed me that stellar smile of hers.

Before she reached the door, I said, “Why couldn’t you just stay married to the guy? Would it have been so bad?”

Erika stopped, then turned around to look at me.

“Do I seem like the marrying type?” she said, warily eying the silenced 9mm in my hand, the one Rob had shot Nate with. The one I’d picked up before leaving and hoped never to use. I’d planned to ditch it with the handcuffs, throwing even more guilt on Erika when it became clear a gun was missing.

I shook my head, saddened.

“No, not really. But you could have been. Have a seat.”

I motioned to the couch and stepped back as she moved to sit down. I let her keep her zipped purse with the gun in it, watching in case she moved to open it.

Erika shrugged.

“So what, you want half now? That could work. I mean, come on—it’s not like I can argue if you’ve got that other tape. We can change the deal—you don’t need that.” This last with a significant look at the Browning.

She went on about the deal we could make, how it would work, and would I please put the gun down? A little bit into it she looked afraid, sensing something impossible to her worldview and trying to deny it.

“I have things to tell you,” I said, when she started repeating herself.

“Things?” Erika said. “What things?”

“There is no other tape.”

“What?”

“I didn’t make a tape.”

Erika smiled politely, like I’d made a dumb joke and she was covering for me. Good friends.

“Come on, this is silly. We don’t have time for this.”

“I was in the room with you,” I said. “That’s how I knew what happened, what you did. All of it.”

“You were in the closet? Was Nate into that?”

Exasperated, I said, “No, he wasn’t into that. And I wasn’t in the closet, I was in the bed. I was Nate.”

“You’re crazy, get out of my way,” Erika said, standing up.

I fired a round into the couch, sending her arms flailing about. The gun’s suppressed report still sounded loud in the quiet room.

“Ok! I’m not moving, see? What the fuck!”

“Do you know what happens when you die?” I said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you know where you go? What do you believe in?”

“You don’t go anywhere,” Erika said, voice rising. “Maybe if you’re rich you get a nice coffin. Ok? We done? Is this about Nate? Look, I’m sorry. You were friends or something?”

“Give me a second,” I said, collecting my thoughts. “Here’s the story. When I died, the stuff I did when I was alive… it ended up mattering a whole lot more than I ever thought it would. After I died, I could somehow remember things. Important stuff I wish I’d thought about before I did what I did. But that wasn’t all that happened. I was sent back—I assume to make up for my mistakes. At least, I hope so. And now you’re part of it. Only, you’re such an amazingly awful person it’s hard to see how.”

Erika’s eyes had grown very large. She shook her head, treating me like she would any psycho with a gun.

“Do you even like children?” I said.

“Sure,” she said, nodding. “I love children. My sister has kids, they’re great.”

“Ever volunteer, growing up? Help out old people? Anything like that?”

Erika nodded again.

“Yeah, volunteering. Old people.”

“Anyway,” I said. “Wherever you end up, whatever happens, you’d be smart to think about those answers you just gave me, see if there’s even a tiny bit of truth in them. Because lady, you need to grow your conscience back. You need to stop being selfish and actually give a damn about people or it’s going to go real, real bad for you. I can’t prove it or anything, it’s just a feeling I have.”

Afraid and confused, Erika said, “End up? Where—”

“Just remember my words, ok? Remember I tried to help you.”

“End up
where
? I’m not going anywhere! What are you talking about? Listen, just let me go, ok? I don’t even want the money. I’m sorry Rob killed your lover, really. I’m sorry—I’m really, really sorry, please don’t do anything stupid.”

The world went hazy for a moment, stretched flat and weird like it does sometimes after being kicked…

Blinking furiously, I found myself on the floor with Erika on top prying at my hand, trying to get the gun from me.

I held on, barely, and then tried to get to my feet.

Erika gave up, falling back. Before I could stop her, she unzipped her purse and pulled out the Kimber. With no hesitation, she pointed it at me and pulled the trigger.

I was right—she wasn’t left handed.

Even from three feet away, she missed me, aiming for my head. All I felt was hot wind and a sharp, stinging sensation in my neck. The recoil surprised her, it being a .45 and Erika untrained. Since I wasn’t trained either, I aimed slow and careful, hitting her high in the chest. The force of the round pushed her back on the couch where she sat gasping for breath, her expression confused and afraid. I knew how she felt, having been there once tonight already.

“You,” she said. “You did that… at the wedding… your eyes …”

All I could do was watch, helpless, as she struggled for life in a body too broken to continue. Since that night in college I’d done everything I could to avoid women, lest the evil I knew I was capable of somehow manifest itself again, and now it had.

“I’m sorry,” I said. To Erika and Sandra both.

Erika glared at me, her expression a reproduction of the one from my dream: lovely and evil and boiling with hatred.

Backing up, I shot her again two more times.

When I finally lifted my eyes, I noticed the camera right away, sitting out plain as day on top of Rob’s DVD player. Despite everything, I wondered how she’d missed it. Or myself, for that matter. When she’d first said to look for it, I’d glanced automatically toward Rob’s entertainment setup. On later reflection in the Great Wherever, I replayed that passing glance to where it now rested. The camera hadn’t been there before I’d killed Erika, of that I was certain.

Lifting the spooky camera by its leather strap, I placed it gently in Erika’s lap. The police needed to see what was on it. If Nate lived, he deserved to know why his brother had tried to kill him and why his fiancée wasn’t worthy of his sorrow.

Being unworthy myself, I’d mourn her for him.

Chapter 35

In America, thanks to energy-conscious insulation and multipane storm windows, one can safely fire .45 caliber hand-cannons in the middle of the night without anyone waking up or noticing. Or rather, maybe someone did hear and decided it made more sense to stay in bed. Either way, my escape from Rob’s house and Erika’s last words went uneventfully. Well yeah, I did see a string of six police cars, lights flashing, exiting off the highway as I was getting on. But they could have been going anywhere.

I found an all-night gas station with public facilities and used that to throw away the handcuffs and gun, after first wiping them down. Then I checked Peter’s neck. Other than a bright red spot where a piece of hot powder had connected, it looked fine. With two kicks so close together, I knew I wouldn’t be in Centreville come morning, but that little red mark would remain. I just hoped Peter wasn’t the type to run off to the doctor for every little thing.

I washed my face and hands thoroughly, trying my best to get the smell of gunpowder off. Thank goodness for Peter’s vanity and his silly shaved-head look or I would have had to worry about washing my hair. My clothes had made it through the night free of blood and bullet holes, so I could hardly complain.

I weighed the idea of driving past Nate’s house, then realized even I wasn’t dumb enough to do that. Instead, I found an empty parking lot and just sat there, quietly wasting time. I wasn’t ready to go back to Peter’s house. The reason was obvious enough: that’s where Sandra was—safe and happy, if those pictures were any indication. I may have fooled myself into thinking my old madness had faded, but learning the truth about Sandra and Peter had shattered that illusion. Something inside me felt betrayed. An angry thing, mean and jealous, and it hated that it had given up everything only to see her happy with someone else. It had been that way in college.

Kick!

***

Sandra and Dan got along famously that first year. They hung out all the time and everything was going well. She was the first girl he’d ever slept with. Or dated. He could see himself marrying her one day, but… she had issues. She talked a long time with certain professors after class. She also liked hanging out with her friends, none of whom liked him.

By the second year, Sandra seemed to have gotten worse. She’d often ignore Dan’s calls or go out of her way to visit her parents on weekends and holidays. Then one day, after he learned she was going away yet again—this time for Spring Break—he found out through her sister that it would be with Peter. Her sister assured Dan they were just friends, but he knew what that meant. Sandra didn’t love him anymore. She had essentially dumped him but was too afraid to say it to his face. Somehow, she didn’t realize how perfect they were for each other. It bothered him because he knew nobody else would have the patience or maturity to see past her faults and grow to love her the way he did.