Sin (The Waite Family) (29 page)

“We still have to tell my mom.”

~~~

Damn it
,
she wasn’t home.
Carl moved
through
the house quietly and decided that he’d wait for her.
Everything he needed was in place
,
but he needed this one more element to finish things off before he was going to disappear for good.
He sat in the overstuffed chair in the living room
and looked around
.

It was a nice house.
Very expensive both in furniture and grounds.
The room he was in had the chair he was sitting in and several more just like it. The fireplace, a gas one
,
wasn’t on
,
but he could tell that it had been recently.
The room was warm and comfortable feeling.

The walls were done in a light
-
colored wall paper.
The shelves
,
and there were plenty of them
,
were filled with pictures and small and large nic
k
-
knacks
.
He didn’t really care for all that crap
,
but it did give the room a nice homey feel
,
he supposed.
Carl had been intrigued to see the photo of Cooperider’s family.

Cooperrider’s
father had been the
c
ommanding
o
fficer of the homicide department.
No wonder Cooperider had a real hard-on to be a good cop. By all accounts his father had been one of the good guys.
Carl decided that he would have hated the man on sight.
Grinning
,
he thought about the other rooms that he’d looked into when he’d been looking for mommy dearest.

He wondered if
,
after this was over
,
he could get a good deal on it. Then he laughed. He wouldn’t be in any house i
n
the States for a long time, if ever again.
This was his last big job
,
he’d decided…well
,
at least until someone else pissed him off enough where he had to kill them.
He could certainly live in the lap of luxury once he landed in Belize.

He had just
over ninety thousand in cash on the plane. There were several credit cards all with bogus addresses and people.
His new identity was perfect and he was already trying to get used to the name.
Paul Householder, he like
d
the sound of it.
He’d put a contract out on the mayor
.
Shipley had come through on that little bit for him not an hour ago. And Hartman James was going to be dead by morning. Life would be perfect as soon as he could take care of his little problem with Cooperider.

He frowned when he
thought
of Quinn. His contract on her had been a bust and the person who had hired him to kill her wasn’t all that thrilled about him having to abort the project with her.
She was a devil and he was actually happy to be rid of her.
He thought of her anger when he’d told her that their deal was off.

“What do you mean the water is too hot for you?
You and I had a deal
,
you little cocksucker.
You do it now or I tell the world what you’ve been up to since you left Ohio.”

She would bring that up.
“I told you before, I have no cover for this.
If I take her out, then the world will be looking for me, not you.
I won’t be a party to this with you any longer. Everything you’ve planned so far has
gone
to shit anyway.
Not one thing you’ve tried as—
”

“And you think that’s my fault
?
” she screamed at him.
“I can’t help it if you continue to fuck up by hiring the wrong group of…that last man had her in his sights.
All he had to do was kill her and
he froze.
What the fuck am I paying you for if you can’t do a simple thing and kill one defenseless woman already injured in a car accident?”

“Defenseless? You know as well as I do there was another person in that vehicle and he had a fucking gun.
And on top of that, you want me to wait on my payment. Do you think men are going to wait around on you to get what you feel is coming to you?
I have expenses and you
,
my dear lady
,
have paid me nothing.”

She snorted.
“You didn’t even have to pay that last man.
And if you did
,
you’re stupider than I thought you were from the beginning.
He’s dead
,
as is
every one
of the hired men you’ve gotten to fuck up my plans.
We will work together on this
,
Carl
,
or so help me there won’t be a place deep enough for you to hide in.”

The phone had slammed down so hard he pulled the phone from his ear. Carl was getting sick and tired of people hanging up on him.
He opened his eyes when he heard a car pull into the driveway.
Smiling
,
he stood up and walked to the door, pulling out his gun as he went.

If this didn’t bring Cooperider running then nothing would. He just hoped the old broad had a way to contact her little boy or he wasn’t sure what to do.
He hid behind the large vase in the
entrance
hall and waited.
This was going to be so easy; he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it sooner.

A guard entered first.
Carl had been expecting this and waited until the woman came in
too
. She was dressed up in a nice dress and him in a tux. Carl wondered for a second if he could fence her jewels and decided he would strip her of them as soon as he got her on his plane.
When she turned to shut the door Carl shot the man in the head and turned the gun on t
o
Candace
Cooperider.

“Don’t do it,” he told her when she reached for the alarm button on the
wall.
“I’ve already disabled your security system and calling the cops now will only get you dead.
Where’s your son?”

“Payton?
How should I
know?
He’s a grown man and—
”

He backhanded her with the gun.
When she crum
p
led to the floor he realized he probably shouldn’t have hit her so hard. She was a tiny thing for having such a big kid and
he
wondered if maybe Cooperider was adopted.
He was searching her
bag for weapons when he heard a voice down the hall.

“Mom, is that you?
I thought you would be a little—
Who are
you?”
Carl smiled at the woman.
“What have you done to my mom?”

“I’m taking the two of you with me.
Didn’t know Cooperider had a little sister.
Might have a bit more fun than I first thought.
No you don’t.”
He fired at her feet when she started to turn and run.
“You get your ass over here and sit down.
Tell me where your brother is and I might leave your mommy here and only take you.”

“Payton?
I don’t know. He only calls
M
om.
She has a cell she is supposed to call him on if she needs him. Don’t hurt my mom, please?”

Carl made a decision to take both women.
Two for the price of one
,
so to speak.
When he had the brother he’d take the little sister and have some fun with her before he killed her too. It would be delicious knowing that she was Cooperider’s sister and he was going to make sure that he knew everything he was going to do to her before he killed him too.

Getting the women to the plane proved to be more
difficult
than he’d thought it should have been.
He’d finally had to threaten the daughter with the gun before the mother came along peacefully.
Carl didn’t want to kill the girl
,
but he had no problem hurting her a bit.
It had only taken a broken arm to get the mother to cave on his demands.
He’d wanted her to fight more, but she didn’t.
Once they were on the plane and headed to Ohio he told them what he wanted.

“You are going to contact your son. And once I get in touch with him I will let you both go.”
He tried for a
reassuring
smile
,
but the mother saw right through it.

“You mean you’re going
to
kill us after you find my son
,
then kill him too. I know who you are
,
you piece of shit.
You’re that cop
Wickett.
Well, buster
,
I’m not going to play that game. You let my daughter go and I’ll tell you where Payton is.”

Carl hit the girl again.
“You’ll tell me now or
,
so help me
,
I’ll have her tossed from this plane.
I don’t give two shits about either of you.
It’s that son of a bitch son of yours I want. He’s cost me a great deal and I plan to collect.
”

In the end he’d had to sho
o
t the girl in the leg before the mother decided to play by his rules. Her threat of Payton tearing him limb from limb didn’t bother Carl. He figured he had the upper hand in that he had the boy’s mother.
Nobody fucked with somebody’s mother, even he knew that.
Plus, and this was the biggest thing of all, Cooperider didn’t have a clue that he had his mother and that he was currently on his way to find him.
He was going to have fun with this and he couldn’t wait to see the man’s face when he shot his mommy in the head before Carl killed him.

~Chapter
16
~