The Unlucky (23 page)

Sarah fought the urge to spit in his face.

“But being a man-chick, that costs you points. Being sarcastic has put you in the negative. Now you’re not pretty anymore and you definitely won’t be hot in about fifteen minutes. Well, actually, you’ll be hot, just not in the sense you think I mean. The fires of a cremation make you real hot. The searing kind.”

“Fire? Cremation? Really?”

“You’ll bathe in the flames of cremation soon enough. But first.” He stood back up and nodded at the men.

They grabbed her under the arms, spun her around and laid her on her back, her feet planted against the cupboards she had been leaning against moments ago.

When they let go, and before she could struggle back around, both men lowered their weapons and lightly touched her with the tips.

“Don’t move,” the tall one on the left said. “Resistance is not smart.”

“Oh, okay. Hadn’t thought about that.”

A shadow covered her vision. Reflex caused her to blink. Then something filled her mouth. She fought back, but they subdued her arms.

Machiavelli’s thick gloves were rancid. He had placed at least three fingers in her open mouth and began to drag her across the floor by the roof of her mouth, her front teeth taking on much of the pressure. She kicked her feet to relieve a modicum of pressure off her mouth. If only the men holding her arms would lift higher, but somehow they added to weighing her down.

She clenched her jaw muscles and clamped down hard in an attempt to close her mouth and sever his fingers, but the gloves were too thick.

Then it was over. Something very cold was under her. His fingers came out of her mouth leaving behind the horrible taste of rubber and mucus. She gagged and hated the image of weakness it portrayed.

The grime on her shirt and pants from hiding behind the garbage bins at the back of the Chinese restaurant still reeked and chilled her on the metal table as the vegetable oil seemed to conduct the cold right through her skin and into her bones.

She turned toward Machiavelli, ready to leap off the table and attack him, consequences be damned, but a bucket of water hit her face. She gasped as the liquid dripped from her upper body, and then moaned at the pain in her cheek. She blinked rapidly and wiped her eyes.

Machiavelli walked over to another counter and flicked a couple of switches on the wall until the room was bathed in light from strong overhead bulbs. The guards on either side of her stayed close enough to be touching her hips.

The small room had a sink and cupboards along one wall. A large machine, like an Italian cappuccino maker, sat on the counter beside Machiavelli, thick wires protruding from each side. A small table to her right was covered with a black cloth. On the cloth were various implements and what looked like tools of torture.

“You stink, Sarah.” Machiavelli turned around, the gloves gone. “Thought the water would help but now you smell like a drowned rat. Fucking pathetic, really.”

She wanted so badly, with everything in her core, to leap off the steel table and drive his face into the corner of the wall, mouth open so the corner could divide his teeth and rip open his gums.

“What is this?” she managed to ask. “What’s next?”

Machiavelli raised his hands. “This is the basement of my funeral home. We cremate people here.” He turned and tapped what looked like the cappuccino machine beside him. “This is an embalming unit.” He pointed at the table she had spied a moment ago. “Those tools help us find the vein, then using these tubes, we fill dead bodies with embalming fluid. Quite simple, really.”

“Why are we here?” she asked.

“Because you’re dead.” He wagged a finger at her. “And just like your sister’s voice in your head, you’re dead but I can still hear you. Fascinating, isn’t it?”

“It’s fascinating if you’re deranged.”

His face turned serious. “Are you?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thought so.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” she yelled. “Let’s get on with this shit.”

“We are waiting for Niles and Fletcher to join us. Niles is the one who will perform your cremation.”

“Oh, am I to be cremated alive? Wait, isn’t Niles dead yet? That’s your plan, isn’t it?”

He nodded and moved closer. The men on either side of her didn’t move an inch.

“Cremation is such a cost effective way to remove our garbage, our used up girls. Did you know that before the year 2000, only about 25 percent of the dead were cremated? By 2017, the number will be as high as 50 percent.”

A man stepped into view. It was Fletcher Aldrich from yesterday at Nathan Phillips Square.

“We’ll only be a moment longer,” Fletcher said. He met Sarah’s eyes. “Then you will be pushed into that.” He pointed. “And cremated alive. Look at our security. We have twenty men upstairs. There’s absolutely no chance of escape this time, Sarah Roberts. No chance.”

A pit the size of a football settled in her stomach. There had to be another way. This couldn’t be over. But how many times had she saw the end and still lived through it? Vivian had to see this coming.

“You murdered my brother and then my father,” Fletcher said. “I will see you roast alive for that.”

Machiavelli stepped into view beside the table. “You made my men ruin my expensive car. Gonna cost you for that, too.”

“Well, once I’m dead, I’ll work hard to pay that back. Smart play killing me, asshole. Smart play.”

Machiavelli looked up at Fletcher with a fake smile. “Always the joker.”

“I try.”

He moved close and hovered over her face. “You’re pathetic. What made you think this would work, whatever it is you think you’ve done? Fletcher here, along with Mason, are going to burn you to ashes. Sarah Roberts will have disappeared.” He stood and moved away. “I’m doing you a favor. No long trial. No prison sentence.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Vivian? Anything here? Could use some help.

“Is Niles ready?” Machiavelli asked Fletcher.

“He’ll be in in a sec. Bandaging his hand.”

“His hand?” Sarah asked.

“He has lost two fingers in an industrial accident,” Fletcher said. “One has to be careful.”

“Does he know about his wife?” Sarah asked.

“He knows you killed her.” Fletcher’s face was deadpan.

“Why did he lose his fingers?”

“Because he fucked up,” Fletcher snapped. “We have rules. He violated them. It’s his fault that Vanessa escaped and wanted to kill herself in the first place.”

“He allowed her to escape,” Sarah said. Then Vivian provided the rest and Sarah spoke it as she became aware of the information. It warmed her on the inside to hear Vivian’s voice so close. “He used his key to open the back door.”

Fletcher looked at her sidelong. “How would you know something like that?”

“Friends in high places.”

“Smart ass comments might work well on the street, but down here it only makes life difficult.”

“Agreed. Life has been punishing down here on this steel table all covered in water. But you know what they say about looking on the bright side?”

“The bright side? There’s a bright side for you here?”

“Well, no, just thought it sounded good.” She shrugged. “Needed something to say.”

“While we wait for Niles,” Machiavelli said. “Let me ask you something, Sarah. You’re aware of the consistency of beach sand?”

She remained motionless, glaring at him.

“That is cremated human ashes. When your body is cremated, it’s not like on TV. When people release the ashes into the ocean or a river, the ashes float because they’re light and fluffy. In real life ashes resemble beach sand. Heavy and thick. Did you know that?”

“Can’t say I’ve had the opportunity to come by that information.”

“Cremation costs about three grand on average, but a burial can run upwards of eight thousand. Crazy, eh?”

“Are you in training for employee of the month?”

“There’s even a company,” he continued, ignoring her, “that will put your ashes into bullets. It’s called Holy Smoke. Another one, for the right price, sends your ashes to outer space. Isn’t that fantastic?”

Sarah leaned up on the table but was slammed back down so hard by the man on her left that her shoulder blade stung briefly again.

“Tell her, Niles,” Machiavelli said as the detective entered the room. “Tell her how you let us down.”

Detective Niles Mason’s eyes were bloodshot with black bags under them as if he hadn’t slept in days. Specks of blood spread across the bridge of his nose and his jaw. When he moved closer to the steel table, Sarah saw the reason for the blood on his face. His left hand had a mound of red-stained bandages piled on it. His arm ended in what looked like a very large Q-Tip. Niles was as pale as a ghost and his hair was unkempt, shoved back as if he didn’t have the use of gel today.

“Sarah,” he said, his tone wavering, weak, like that of a scared eight-year-old boy in a schoolyard facing off a bully. “You have caused a lot,” he paused, swallowed, then said, “a lot of trouble.” He held up his bandaged hand. “Because I let Vanessa go free, they took my wife. I needed to kill Detective Simmons to make things right. But that wasn’t enough. I needed to take you out, too. In order to make it look justified, I gave you the gun in that parking lot. But you got away.” His eyes moved to Machiavelli for support. The councilor nodded. “I have one more person I have to kill to make things right.”

“No way,” Fletcher said pushing forward and shoving Detective Mason out of the way. “Sarah’s mine. After what she did to my family, I get to kill her.”

“Men,” Machiavelli said to the guards on either side of her. “Leave us. Guard the outer door. No one leaves this room until I say so. And let no one in. I don’t care what you hear in here, no one comes in. Got it?”

The guards barked out their acknowledgment in unison and walked away, disappearing around the corner. A moment later, a door in the other room closed firmly.

“Now that we’re alone,” Machiavelli said. “We can begin—”
 

“When I said I have someone else to kill, I wasn’t talking about Sarah,” Mason said under his breath.

“What?” Fletcher snarled.

Even with her head turned sideways, Sarah saw the weapon in Mason’s good hand. Fletcher looked down as the weapon discharged and then his body vibrated as the bullet entered his abdomen. Sarah’s body went rigid on the table. The trajectory of the bullet could’ve passed through Fletcher and into her, but it didn’t.

Mason raised the weapon and fired again. This time only the noise made her jerk.

Fletcher stumbled backwards, his hands covering the stomach wound as if that alone would keep the blood in. He faltered another step, bumped her steel gurney and fell over her legs.

She screamed out as her knees were pushed into the gurney in a way they weren’t supposed to bend, and then the pressure was gone an instant later as Fletcher slipped off the table and hit the floor with a satisfying thump.

Somewhere upstairs a commotion started. A gun fired.

What the hell is that now?

Mason looked at Sarah, his eyes devoid of life as if something dead had crawled inside his skull and rooted behind his optic nerve.

“Fletcher should have never allowed his brother free rein in that house in Orillia. Too many innocents died there. I should’ve stopped him years ago, but I was weak. I’m not weak anymore.”

Someone clapped their hands.

To her left, Machiavelli stood beside the steel gurney clapping, smiling.

“Well done, Mason. You’ve paid your dues. You’re back in.” Machiavelli walked around to the head of the gurney, unlocked something out of sight, and started pushing Sarah toward the other side of the room. “You’re officially on the payroll again, Mason. See Sarah, as I told you earlier, Detective Niles Mason is the one who has the order to execute you. He gets to do the honors.”

Sarah made to jump from the gurney but it was no use as Mason’s gun pressed against her temple. His wounded arm wrapped around her head, resting on the top of her chest.

More noise from upstairs. Someone clomped by, their footfalls heavy and determined.

“Don’t try to get up,” he whispered. “Please don’t make me destroy your pretty face.”

“What’s next?” Sarah asked looking down at his roaming hand. “Dinner and a movie? Or did I miss that part?”

“You are a strange one, Sarah,” Machiavelli said. “Too bad you weren’t on my side. You’d humor me with your wise-ass mouth.”

“Somehow I don’t think that would be the only thing my mouth would be used for if I was on your side.”

“Finally, the wise-ass smartens up.” Machiavelli stopped pushing the gurney as it bumped into something. He looked down at her. “Too bad there isn’t more time. I would love to taste a woman with so much anger in her. Although you’d have to shower that smell off first.” He moved away and pushed a button. A small door that resembled a tiny garage rose up to reveal the inside of a cremation chamber, the flames already lit.