Tomahawk (7 page)

The gun clanked on the floor.  He kicked the gun to the far side of the foyer. “Now, I would like to know where Mr. Moore is."   Pushing her back by her wrist and straightening his wrinkled suit jacket.

"He's not here."  Rubbing her sore wrist and keeping an eye on her fallen weapon.

"Where is he?"

Her nose flared and she gritted her teeth.  "I don't know, and if I did I wouldn't tell you."  She put her back against the door in case he wanted to do more than ask her questions.  Getting the gun out of her hands was going to be her last mistake.

Kinney smiled.  "Relax, Daniels if I wanted you dead, you would be.  Now tell me where your boss is now, before you have more than a sore wrist."

How did he know my name? she thought.  She took the opportunity to lunge at him when he made a quick glance behind him.  She managed to punch him square in the chest, which didn't catch him off guard in the least.  He countered by grabbing the weak wrist and squeezing.  "Is this a way for a lady to act?"  The pain made her drop to her knees.  Melissa yanked at her wrist and pulled the agent forward to the floor.

"This is how I act," she said. She pulled him to the floor. Rolling on top of the agent, she gave him punch to the jaw.  The agent bucked her off. Melissa slid across the tile floor on her back.  Picking up the gun she aimed at the agent.  "Now, what the hell are you doing here?"

Kinney put his hands up and smiled.  "Moore trained you well, Ms. Daniels.  Now, if you would put the gun down and tell me where he is I will be out of your hair."

The two stood staring at each other for a moment.  "Get out! NOW! Before you have more than a sore jaw, but a bullet through the chest."

He took one step closer and she put one in the chamber.  He stopped and smiled at the woman.  "I'm sure that it won't look too good if you shot your boss's boss now would it?"

Melissa knew that Vic answered to someone, but she didn't know who and didn't really care.  "I will let him know that you dropped in." She said thick with sarcasm.  Hands still up, he slowly reached into his breast pocket again.  “Don't try it!"  She was no more than eight feet away from him. At this range, she would leave a nasty hole in him.

Kinney looked back up to her and pulled out a business card.  "When your boss gets in, be sure to let him know that I dropped in.  It's important that I speak to him."  Kinney turned and walked out the front door.

"I'm going to need a raise."

"This will be your home for the next 18 months.  All of your moves will be monitored, your internet usage, phone, and television.  You will have that nice little do-hickey on your ankle for the whole time of your probation.  You will meet with your parole officer every Wednesday morning for the next 18 months.  There is a job for you that you will be starting next week.  All the information is in this packet.  Do you have any questions?" the officer asked.

Jacob Mentik looked down at his house arrest monitor on his ankle.  "How far can I go with this thing?"

"We have it programmed to your place of residence and the hours that you will be working. If you deviate, you will be arrested on sight.  If there is a change in any of your plans, let your P.O. know in advance."  The officer huffed.  "Look a lot of people wished they would have got the sentencing you got.  In a year and a half you will be able to move on. from this, like it never happened."  He smiled.

At 26-years-old, Mentik thought that his best years were already behind him anyway.  He prayed that this day would come, five plus years spent in a detention center.  At least he wasn't in maximum security, his mother would say.  His father pulled more strings than Geppetto. For what he was accused of, he should be spending the rest of his life in prison.  "Thank you, officer."  Jacob picked up the packet with all the terms of his release.  Then tossed it on the ratty coffee table.

He was now living in a downtown apartment the size of a matchbox.  His parents had already moved back to Wyoming. They didn't even bother coming to see him.  No worries, he thought. He had nearly cost them everything anyway.  His father pulled his hat back from serving a second term, which was understandable.  Who would vote for a guy whose son was going to jail?  The media painted a better picture than reality. That he thanked the spin doctors for.

"You have a fridge stocked with food and there is about $900 by the kitchen sink, courtesy of your father.  Again, is there any questions that you have before I leave?"

Jacob looked around his shabby digs and shrugged.  "I guess if there's anything else to know, I can call this number?"  He lifted up the packet which had the officer's number on the back.

The officer laughed out loud taking the young man by surprise.  "If you call that number, all you will get is a grieving wife."  The officer continued to laugh. 

Taking another look at the packet.  "Officer Terry Hightower?" he whispered.

"Yes, Officer Hightower was supposed to pick you up from the hotel behind bars this morning, but he had an accident."  In the detention center, Jacob never had to worry about prison shower rapes or beatings.  He was in Club Med for criminals.  He stood, but didn't know what to do with his fists that were clenched at his sides.  The man that he had been with this morning that said he was Office Hightower took a step closer to Jacob.  "You see, this morning Hightower kissed his wife and four children goodbye.  He got in his car, but before he could open the garage door he had no idea that he had a passenger in the rear seat."  He smiled at the young man whose eyes had grown large in shock.  He pulled out his knife.  "I just gave him a poke in the neck and he became a human water fall right in his car."  He jabbed the knife in the air reliving the stabbing of the officer in his jugular.

Jacob's mouth opened. He wanted to scream for help, wanted to run.  He just stood there like a coward.  "Are you going to kill me?"  Tears began to well in the young man's eyes.  He had lived locked up, cast away as a living embarrassment to his family and friends. Now he was going to die.

"No, I'm not going to kill you."  He tapped the knife against his leg, which Jacob couldn't keep his eyes off of.  "I wouldn't take that much pleasure in it.  You see, I like challenges.  You’re a young man. You haven't even tried to fight for your life.  I just told you that I killed a man with a family and you keep standing there like you are watching the news."  Jacob's tormentor smiled.  "You just like picking on something weaker. Don't you?”  Jacob met his eyes.  "Oh, there you are.  I knew that that would bring some spark back to you.  She didn't have a chance did she?  You wouldn't let her." 

He opened his mouth to protest.  To tell him that he paid his debt to society and that he was a free man, besides the 18-month probation and having to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.  He was free. 

"The anger in your eyes tell me that you may be a challenge, but I sincerely doubt it."

"What are you going to do to me?  Tell me!"

Jacob hadn't noticed that the man had taken a step forward.  "I'm not going to do anything to you.  Today, you are going to kill yourself."

"You can't make me do that."

"Oh, but
you
will.  You haven't even taken a look in your packet have you?"  He pointed the knife to the packet still on the table.  "If you take a look in it, it will show all the dirty deeds your father did to keep this out of the media and you not getting the full punishment that you deserve.  Saying her death was an accident and that you were drinking.  But we know the truth.  So, to be fair, I want to make it seem you have a choice.  You can live in this shit hole, with your sorry life or you could end it all without further humiliation to your family.  I'm sure your asshole of a father will thank you somewhere in the afterlife."  He folded his arms.

Jacob looking at the packet.  Money transferred to the detention center for their silence on why he was in there.  The paying off of the judge that it would be a quick sentencing.  He thumbed through the pages and couldn't read anymore for the blurred vision of his tears.  Looking up at his tormentor, he handed the knife to him.

"Now, I don't want to be here all day. I have other plans."  He took Jacob's hand and guided him and the knife below his elbow.  "Just cut all the way down to your wrist.  Don't worry it's sharp and don't forget to go deep.  The fake officer took a step back and let Jacob cry for a few minutes before he did the deed.  As expected he begged for another way out, pleaded and apologized.  Pointing to his watch, "Jacob I still have other things I have to do today."  He looked at the snot-faced boy.  "Once you expire, I will call 911 so you won't rot in this place. Okay?” He put his right hand up.  "I promise."

It took Jacob four tries before his blood began to pour out of his veins. In a little over five minutes, Jacob closed his eyes and took his last breath.

With a gloved hand, his tormentor threw the papers all over the one bedroom apartment.  He closed the front door behind him, never giving a second thought to the promise that he made.

Chapter 6

"I can’t and I won't let you."  I stood over her. 

"What gives you the right, Vic?"  She ran her hand over her pixie haircut and shouted.  "I want to kill him."

"Do you actually think that I am going to let you commit murder?  You're just angry and hurt."  I could see it in her eyes, the pain.  It was the same look she gave me when she pulled out of my driveway five years ago.  I knew that I could never give her anything that she wanted.  "Let me handle this.  I will make sure that he will never hurt you or another person ever. Just trust me."

"Trust you?  I could never trust you.  You...you broke that part in me."  She looked back at the window.  "I allowed you to."

There it was. She finally said it to me.  "Tonya, please. I know that I messed up but if you only knew why.  Why I had to break things off. I never meant to hurt you."

"You thought that I didn't love you?  I gave you everything!" she stalked towards me.  "I gave up a good job in Atlanta.  I gave my body and my heart to you, because I loved you so much.  You were the one that turned away from me on whim, not me."

Giving me a hard glare.  "Tonya, I know that my sorry is nothing to you--"

"You’re right.  You told Ryan and Drew not to talk to me? Didn't you?"  My silence was her answer.  "I thought so. You couldn't just break off the relationship. You had to leave me completely alone.  And now you want me to trust you?  You are the last person on this earth that I ever wanted to see again in my life, God knows if I wasn't in this position--"

"Please," I whispered reaching out to her.

"I would tell you to go straight to hell." 

My hand dropped back down to my side.

Hopping back to the window, she continued to stare. I took a deep breath. "Tonya, we are going to have to work together if we are going to get through this. I know that you hear me."  Tonya didn't even respond.  "Can you just please answer me.  Please."

"There is no 'we.' Just Tonya and you.  I have to work through this.  Once this guy is found and I kill him. I think that I will try to get a teaching job somewhere in Baltimore."

"Never took you as a runner."

"Never took you as a pusher either."

"Touché."

Tonya's shoulders slumped.  "Don't think that I will be able to take my kids out on recess and watch them playing on the spot where I was found.  Just too ugly, you know?  I will roll over some vacation time, then I'm going to start looking."

"Your students are going to miss you." 
I'm going to miss you.

"I'll miss them too. It’s just for the best I think.  Too many memories here."  She looked back at me and I knew that she was talking about us.

"Yeah...I know what you mean."  I couldn't stop looking at her.  My heart was going through a gambit of contradictions.  How can you lose something without ever really letting go?  Everything that I ever wanted was right in the room with me, but I could never touch it--touch her.

"Can you stop?”  She woke me out of my pity party.  "Can you stop staring at me?"  She rubbed her foot on her calf.

"Right now, no. I can't stop looking at you.  I don't know if I want to stop."  I drew closer to her she took a quick glance around the room to find an escape route.  "Just let me look at you.  Give me that."

With her good arm she shoved me back, but like the moon pulls the tide I still came closer.  "You don't deserve me."  She put her head down.

"I know.  I never did and I never will.  I was never the man that you needed, but you have always been the woman that I've wanted.  Please."  I put my hand out to her. Tonya looked at my hand then to me and turned her back and faced the window.

"I think I want to lie down now. You can leave."

With great will, I turned and put one foot in front of the other. "I'll be right out here."  The soft creak of the door almost drowned out her tender crying.

With one foot out the door and my hand on the knob, I turned around. She put her hands to her face and continued to cry.  It reminded me of the time when one of her students was killed over Spring Break.  The kid's name escapes me now, but he was with his mother coming from the store when they were hit by a drunk driver.  Tonya put on a brave face for the kids in her class.  Grief counselors came and set up a memorial for him in their class, but when she came over that night she looked weak like she did now.

I could tell that she had cried all the way to my place. Mascara was everywhere and her eyes were red with pain.  That night I followed her in the shower and I held her as she cried, never wanting to see her in pain.

Now, in the hotel room, I whispered, "Tonya." She looked over her shoulders and rolled her eyes. I took the tip of her elbow between my thumb and pointer finger pulling her closer to me.

"Vic, I'm tired."  She didn't pull away, which in my mind was a good sign.  "Let me go to sleep."  She turned, tears still ran down her face. Her eye lashes all spiky again.  I was being torn apart.

I slid my hand down the length of her thin arm.  She was the water to a thirsty man.  Her skin was softer than I remembered. Her arm was warm like it always was. "Let me make it better."  She inhaled sharply and I shook my head.  "Let me try."

"You can't."

"I'll try."

"Don't bother."

"It's not a bother."

"Well, it is to me."

"What can I do to make it better, beside me killing the animal?"  I was holding her hand now.  It was so small, she no longer wore the acrylic nails, and they were now short and polished.  They were recently clipped from the detective getting DNA samples from her attacker.  I squeezed her hand tighter not wanting to ever let her go.  Afraid if I loosened my hold she would slip through my fingers...again.

"I'm going to kill him. After everything, I think you owe me that much."

"I owe you everything in this world and I would give it to you. Everything but that."  She put her head down in defeat, but she still let me hold her hand.  "Tonya, I know about the baby.  I wish you would have called me. You shouldn't have went through this all by yourself."

The side of her mouth rose in a half smile, not the reaction that I thought I was going to get.  "How do you know it was yours?” Not the response that I thought she was going to give.  "My world doesn't revolve around you."  Pulling her hand out of mine.  "You’re not the only man that I've ever been with."

I remembered the hospital notes.  The timeline was perfect. She was lying to hurt me and I knew it.  She was trying to get back at me, but true or false it still hurt.  "I know that he was mine."

"He?  Why couldn't it been she?"  She shook her head at me.  "Everything is not always about you and what you want.  The baby, my baby, never saw the light of day. It happens.  No need to talk about it. Just like you and me, it is ancient history."  She put her hand over her stomach.  "Beside my baby wasn't your responsibility anyway."

"Don't do this.  I know that he… the baby was mine."

"What makes you so sure?"

Doubt fell on me like an avalanche.  I couldn't be sure, shouting from the rooftop that she had carried my child was just adverting my enormous ego.  Believing this lie would make me doubt what her and I once shared.  "I would have helped you with the baby, mine or not."

"Well, thank God we will never have to find out."

We both looked at the bedroom door. There was a  hard knocking coming from hotel door room. "Stay here."  I pulled my gun out and walked to the door.

I internally thanked Tonya for coming to a decent hotel with a peep hole.  I opened the door.  "Detective Stone I would say that I’m surprised, but I'm not."  I opened the door to let him in. He took a quick look around.

"Mr. Moore, I told you in a subtle way not to stick your nose into this investigation."  Stone took a step closer, a little too close for me.  If it weren't for Tonya being in the next room I would have punched this guy.  “Were you expecting someone else?"  Looking down at the gun still in my hand.

"You never know.  So what do I owe this pleasure Detective?"  I walked past him into the dining area.

"There's been a murder."

Shit.  "Really?  Anyone that I know?"

"Matter of fact, yes--"

"He's been with me."  Both of our heads turned to see Tonya in the doorway of the bedroom.  "Vic has been here. There's no way that he could’ve killed anyone."  Her voice was soft but strong as she came over to stand by my side.

Smiling.  "I'm glad to see you up, Ms. Irvine.  I think that the both of you should take a seat."

"I'd rather stand."  Tonya put her hand in mine and squeezed.

Stone hunched his shoulders.  "We got a 911 call from a Mr. Battle's house. By the time that an officer made it to his residence, he had already passed."

She put her hand over her mouth.  "My God."

"We know that you were there Mr. Moore." 

Tonya looked up at me. Stone put his hands up.  "And we know that you didn't kill him.  It was too messy for you and your line of work."  Stone sat at the table and stretched his legs out.  "I know that if you wanted him dead you and your people would have done it miles away.  What I don't know is why?  Why would anyone want a former pro athlete stabbed to death is my question?"

"You’re the detective. You should be finding out," I said, glancing back at Tonya who was still in shock.

"That is what I plan to do.  Mr. Moore could you please stay out of this.  I don't need any more bloodshed."

"Well, I think you better start making a list," Special Agent Kinney said.

Hindsight was always 20/20, he thought. He watched Kinney dash into the hotel.  If he had known that most of the team and other added players were going to be here, he would have planned accordingly.  Oh well, he thought, tossing the used officer's clothes in the back seat of his SUV.

This had been a long time in the making, but revenge is a dish best served cold, he had heard once before.

In due time all of this would be over and he would be able to move on to his normal life.  Maybe get married have a few kids of his own. He was lying to himself and he knew it.  Killing was just a means to an end with him.  The football player, the officer, they were all just means to an end. He kept reminding himself.  These unlucky bastards were just practice for what he was going to do to Vic and his team.  The girl he felt compassion for, just a bit. 

He had been watching her for days, learning her routine was just that--routine.  She would get off work, go home, and stay in for the night.  When forming his plan, he knew that she was going to be the first of many dominoes to fall in this game.  Simply killing her would get Victor's attention.  She wasn't worth the struggle he thought, just put the bomb on the car and watch the fireworks.  But he wanted more from her, wanted her to suffer like Lola had.  He wondered if Vic had told her about what he had done and the real reason that he dumped her.  It wasn't a driving factor. One way or the other, she was going to die.

He shifted back in the car seat and kept an eye on the hotel entrance.  He knew that Fridays were the days that she would go to the store. The moment that she left for work, he broke into her home, like he had done on numerous occasions.  He didn’t see himself as a stalker or anything. He had to know his mark.  Victor would be proud.  After making a sandwich and drinking her last Crystal Lite, he trashed the place.  Being mindful of the speed limit, he took his time to the store.  It took him less than five minutes to find her car in the lot.  It was packed. People were clamoring to get the last of whatever they needed. And with the snow falling harder than it was before, he watched the girl stop pushing the cart and carry the bags in her arms. 

Smirking as she slipped and skid across the lot, she high stepped in her dark blue galoshes.  She's cute, he thought.  This was the first time that he was that close to her.  The bomb was ready, right under the driver door.  The moment that she would open it boom.  Then some guy came out of nowhere and offered to help with the groceries. He couldn't hear what she said, but he knew that she turned him down by the fella’s downcast look. She never stopped walking.  With the fella standing there in the cold, she rolled her eyes as she walked away.  She was a fighter, and he loved a challenge.