Jake Caldwell Thrillers Read online

  A bulky Hispanic man dressed in jeans and a beige jacket climbed out of the passenger side and walked around the front. He spoke in Spanish to the driver then climbed into the cab of the John Deere. The tractor fired up, its engine echoing in the empty warehouse. Over the top of the van, Jake watched the tractor roll forward a few feet and stop. The driver’s door squealed open and the man in the tractor climbed down. More doors creaked, probably the back of the van, followed by the scrape of dragging metal. Jake closed his dry mouth and he prayed they wouldn’t come this way.

  A few minutes later, the scraping metal sounded again followed by van doors slamming shut. Back in the tractor, the Hispanic man reversed it to its original spot. He got back in the truck, the bay door opened and they were gone. Jake waited until the door closed and the sound of the van faded into the distance.

  He emerged from behind the door, pointed the Glock and eased into the warehouse. Empty. Nothing but him and the tractor. What the hell were they moving it for? He crossed the warehouse and stood by the huge tractor tires. He pulled out his cell phone and turned on the flashlight feature. The bright LED lit up the dirty floor and revealed the source of the scraping sound. A large, orange grate which rested underneath the tractor tires. Jake shined the light through the gaps to an empty trough. Probably a drain for washing down equipment.

  He climbed into the tractor and fired it up. He’d never driven one and it took him a minute to figure out the controls. Those guys didn’t move this beast for the hell of it. Something must lay underneath. He managed to roll the tractor forward a few feet then killed the engine. Climbing down, he wrested the bulky grate from the floor without throwing out his back.

  Inside the empty trough, a rectangle shape outlined the metal with a small, circular ring at the top and a hinge on the opposite side. He knelt on the floor and yanked the ring. The metal raised on the hinge revealing a compartment, about three feet long and a foot wide. Jake whistled at the contents.

  Inside, clear plastic bags of white powder glistened. Probably not baby powder. A cheap, black-leather duffel bag sat in the space. Jake leaned down and unzipped the top. Strapped bricks of dollar bills. He thumbed through the pile. Maybe fifty thousand. Now what the hell should he do?

  Langston owned the warehouse, and this had to be one of his stashes. Jake should take the drugs and the money and get the hell out of there, but what would he do if he got stopped by the cops, several kilos of what he assumed to be cocaine in his truck? He left the drugs in the trench and grabbed the duffel bag. Heck, he needed the money more than Langston and considered the find the spoils of war.

  Jake set the duffel bag to the side, closed the lid and wrestled the grate back in place. He clambered up the ladder to the cab to back the tractor up but figured he had just as good a chance of driving the thing through the warehouse wall. Leave well enough alone. Instead, he grabbed a rag, wiped down everywhere he touched and ran out the back door with the duffel bag, picking up his sledgehammer along the way. A minute later, he rolled out of the parking lot with the fifty grand locked in the tool box on his truck.

  Now what? He had Langston’s money, but what about the drugs? He headed back toward Hospice, searching the shops on the way. Finding Bigfoot would have been easier than finding a pay phone. Spotting one at the edge of a dilapidated strip mall, he called in an anonymous tip to the police, giving them the location of the warehouse and where to look. He wiped the phone down with a rag and drove away with a grin on his face. A rare win for the good guys.

  * * *

  By the time Jake got back to Hospice, Stony slept. The room was homey, with brown, threadbare carpet and wallpaper with flowers and vines. Sepia maybe, who knew. He never claimed to be an interior decorator. A basic dresser sat along the wall at the foot of the bed with a mid-sized, flat-panel television on one end of the wood. A ceiling fan rotated lazily overhead. Jake plopped in a recliner, running a visual circle between the window with a view of the sun-drenched parking lot, the spinning blades of the fan and his father who lay on his side, his face crunched in agony.

  A heavy-set nurse in pale blue scrubs floated silently into the room, checking the IV hooked into his father’s hand. After writing some things on a chart, she slid over to the chair where Jake sprawled, interrupting his attempts to come up with a way he might reveal to the cops Langston’s ties with the warehouse.

  “Hi,” she said in a soft, practiced manner. “I’m Judy and I’ll be looking after your father at night. If you need anything, let us know.” She patted Stony’s leg and slipped out of the room. Overall, Jake had to admit, an impressive display by the staff. Regular hospitals either acted like they didn’t care with a calculated indifference or they over-schmoozed to make you think they did. The rhythmic rocking of the chair and the cool breeze from the ceiling fan hypnotized him and he dozed off.

  He held an absurdly large fishing pole in his hand at the banks of the pond behind their house. The rod as thick as a small sapling and the reel as big as his head. A blood-red line dove into the murky water.

  Across the dock, Nicky sat on the edge fishing, his feet dangling in the water. His thick mane of black hair hung on his shoulders and he bobbed his head back and forth like he jammed to a tune. A needle gleamed in the sunlight next to him.

  “Nicky,” Jake yelled, but all that came out was a tiny squeak. A chill ran down Jake’s back as he realized what day this was even though he wasn’t here when it happened. The dock, the needle, the smile on Nicky’s face.

  Nicky’s head continued to bob to the music in his head. He picked up the syringe, examining the icy contents. Jake tried to move his feet, but they were buried to his ankles in the mud. The rod sang and burned in his hands; the buzzing of the cicadas grew in volume; every sense amplified a hundred fold. A sweaty sheen covered Nicky’s brow. Even across the lake, Jake could smell the heroin in the syringe, his panic rising.

  Nicky’s head stopped bobbing and the smile disappeared from his face. The song in his head had ended. He set the syringe on the dock and dropped his fishing pole in the water, peeling off his T-shirt and undoing the belt holding up his ratty, stained jeans. As he wrapped it around his skinny bicep and cinched it tight, Stony sauntered down the hill from the house toward the pond, a square bottle of Jack Daniels swinging by his side.

  “Dad,” Jake yelled, this time finding his voice. “Dad, help!”

  Simultaneously, his father and brother put their index fingers to their lips, shushing Jake. Nicky picked up the needle. Jake screamed and twisted, pulled and tugged. Nicky put the needle to his arm and pierced the bulging blue vein.

  Nicky’s thumb hovered over the plunger and he looked over to Jake. Sadness and gut-wrenching anguish draped his face. “Got no choice, little bro. You left me here to die.”

  Nicky pushed down. His brown eyes rolled back in his head, which lolled back and forth. His mouth gaped in a knowing grin as he lay gently back on to the weathered pine boards.

  At the same moment, the line on Jake’s rod and reel jerked, the top of the rod bending impossibly. Jake used all his strength to crank the handle, bringing in the line a few inches at a time. Across the way, Nicky coughed and twitched. The more his older brother sputtered and gagged, the faster Jake cranked the reel.

  A figure rode below the surface of the pond, following the tiny wake from the thick fishing line as it sucked through the water. Jake spun the reel, drawing in the line as if Nicky’s life hung in the balance.

  With his catch mere feet from the bank, Nicky twitched one last time and the light disappeared from his eyes as if someone flipped a switch. Light to dark. Life to death. Fade to black. At the same moment, the figure launched itself out of the water and landed face to face with Jake. His father, waterlogged and motley skinned, the green lake water filling his eyes, a mouth full of jagged teeth and black ooze.

  “It should’ve been you, Jake,” Stony said.

  Jake yelled and jumped out of the recliner, frantically swiping away at imaginary t
hreads of the dream. Nurse Judy rushed in.

  “Everything okay, Mr. Caldwell?”

  “Yeah,” Jake replied, sweaty and shaky. “Everything’s fine.”

  The dream rushed back, and his mind’s eye saw Nicky dead on the dock. His mother’s grave with her fine blue dress draped over the headstone. The Dad-thing from the lake camped in Stony’s chair in the house, swinging a thick lead pipe in a scaly, muscular arm.

  “You sure?” she asked.

  “No.” He grabbed his keys off the dresser and left without a glance back.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Halle ran for her life down a rutted dirt path leading from the house and through the thick Ozark woods. Overgrown branches tore at her clothes and scratched her sun-kissed skin. The path narrowed, then serpentined, ever covered in a thick canopy of green. Sunlight penetrated the growth in splotches, lighting her escape route. Limbs cracked and snapped as they crashed through the brush behind her.

  Though her heart thundered with panic and frightened tears blurred her vision, she widened the gap from her pursuers. Hours of blasting around the track at school finally paid off. Another half mile to reach Highway 83 where there might be some traffic. Rounding a hook in the path leading to the final straightway stretch, she kicked in the afterburners and her hope snapped away with an agonizing pop in the hamstring of her right leg. She stumbled and fell, biting into dirt and leaves. As she tumbled to a stop, the shouts grew closer.

  Eyes darting to either side looking for cover, she scrambled to her feet and hobbled into the brush. She crawled in a few yards, found a protective oak and pulled herself to the other side away from the path. Her back bit into the sharp edges of the bark as she slid low and slumped against the base. One hand grabbed her injured leg, the other clamped against her mouth to stifle her frantic panting. She reached for her cell phone, then remembered it wasn’t there. She’d give anything to call Mom. Would she ever see her again?

  “Where’d she go?” the approaching voice said, gulping air between words, heavy feet pounding the ground. Sounded like Willie Banks.

  “She’s going for the highway,” another said in a heavy twanged accent. “Keep going. We gotta get her or it’s gonna be our asses.”

  The footsteps thumped on the path and she huddled in the brush. God, what could she do? She couldn’t stay here because they’d come back. She couldn’t go back to the abandoned house because the others might be there. The Cleary house up the hill on Poor Boy Road lay a good half mile away and would be tough going in the heavy woods on an injured leg. But what options did she have other than to dive deeper into the Ozark woods? With a whimper, she pushed to her feet, using the old tree for support, her hamstring screaming.

  She slid to the side and eyed the steep hill she needed to climb when a hand grabbed her by the throat. Steely fingers bit into her flesh and shoved her up against the tree. The dark eyes of her attacker bore into hers, the plastic suit crinkling. A wet, red tongue flicked over ragged teeth. The man pulled his face close to hers, his eyes wild and crazy.

  “Gotcha bitch.”

  * * *

  Thirty-five miles away in Sedalia, Jake burst out the front door of Hospice House and gulped the fresh air greeting him. He clasped the back of his neck with both hands, heart thundering like he’d run a marathon. He’d heard about people having panic attacks. If this wasn’t one, it did a pretty damn good imitation. He would have been on the road back to Kansas City in the next sixty seconds had Maggie not strolled across the sparsely filled parking lot toward him.

  Her strong, bronzed arms swung by her sides; hair bound in a French braid draped over her shoulder. Just her presence brought Jake back into focus. Her face scrunched with worry as she drew closer.

  She reached out and touched his arm. “You okay?”

  Her electric touch sparked a torrent of feelings. Love and regret, happiness and longing, joy and pain. He wanted to go back in time to their spot on the hill where the world still didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, but they at least had each other.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” he lied. She squinted her eyes and pursed her lips. Even after sixteen years, she could tell when he was full of it.

  “Uh huh. That’s what I thought. You just check in?”

  “Couple hours ago,” Jake said. “Stony’s sleeping. I dozed off and had a helluva nightmare.”

  “About your dad?”

  “And Nicky. Jumping back here…”

  “Brings back a lot of memories.” She dropped her arm back to her side. Their hilltop off Poor Boy Road reflected in her eyes. She’d aged, but man did she age well, more beautiful now than at eighteen.

  “Maggie,” he said. “I don’t know what the hell to do.”

  Jake waited for her response. He’d done some pretty unspeakable things over the last decade, things he wasn’t proud of, things that would land him a good stretch in prison if he’d been caught. Those he worked for counted on him because he proved to be an unflappable, unshakable rock. Yet, standing by the entrance to the building where his father lay dying inside, and touched by a woman he’d never stopped loving, Jake was weak and vulnerable.

  “I know what to do.” She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, burying her pretty head into his chest. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  He inhaled the flowery scent wafting off her hair. “Don’t you have to work?”

  “Nope. I’m done now.”

  She slid her arm around his elbow and grabbed his bicep, pulling him toward his truck.

  “Where we going?” Jake asked.

  “Stony’s in good hands. You got any beer up at your house? I could sure use a cold one and I’d like to know what you’ve been up to for the last sixteen years.”

  “Guess I could do that.”

  The setting sun loomed large in the clear autumn sky as they left Hospice House and headed south. He stole glances at Maggie as they drove. Maybe not all past shadows were dark.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The Wild Man ate Halle up with his crazy eyes, reminding her of the gnashing, roaring monsters in her childhood book Where the Wild Things Are. Bennett Skaggs huffed back up the trail when Wild Man gave an ear-piercing whistle.

  “Yeah, my pretty,” Wild Man said. The vise grip on her neck burned and his free hand traced her neck to her shoulder. Halle shivered and groaned as his fingers touched the top of her breast. Visions formed of her naked, crumpled figure lying on the forest floor while these animals had their way with her.

  “Let her go, Dexter,” the voice behind Wild Man said. Dexter’s hungry expression crashed to tight lips and an eye roll of disappointment.

  “Fuck that,” Dexter said. “She’s coming with us.”

  Willie Banks came down the trail over Dexter’s shoulders, the hood of the suit bouncing behind him. Bennett lagged behind, red-faced and breathing heavy. Willie had a gas mask in one hand and a large, black pistol in the other. Willie creeped her out. Always staring with lustful hunger on his pockmarked face. However, he also appeared to be her only chance out of this situation.

  “Willie, help me,” she said, the breathless speech of the panicked. He twitched at the mention of his name coming from her lips.

  “Jesus Christ,” Dexter said. “The bitch knows your name?”

  “Of course, she does, you moron.” Willie drew up beside Dexter and pulled his hand away from Halle’s throat. “How big a town you think we live in?”

  “This is a problem,” Dexter said, drawing his gaze down Halle’s body. Goosebumps erupted on her skin. “A problem I can take care of…eventually.”

  “You ain’t takin’ care of nothing but bagging up what’s left in the house,” Willie said. “This is my town and she’s now my problem.”

  He gripped Halle’s arm and dragged her sideways away from Dexter. She went willingly, glad to be out from under the vulture’s gaze, even if it was Willie Banks doing the tugging. Dexter grabbed her other arm and her hamstring groaned in protest. W
illie set off toward the house, but Dexter held his ground, turning her into an absurd wishbone contest.

  “You know, the boss won’t put up with no witnesses to the operation,” Dexter said. “It ain’t gonna happen.”

  “Let’s get her back to the house,” Willie said. “We’ll secure her, finish bagging the stuff, and get Bub and Bennett on the move.”

  “You should quit using our names,” Bennett said.

  “You went to fucking school with her, Bennett. She cheered you playing football last year. Get up to the house.”

  Bennett trudged up the trail like a little kid being sent to his room without any supper. Dexter gave Willie a squinty “this shit ain’t over” look before following Bennett.

  “You okay?” Willie asked softly when the others were out of ear shot.

  “Think I blew my hamstring running.” A glimmer of optimism burned like a fire through Halle’s body. Maybe she could charm her way out. “Can you help me get home?”

  Willie drew his head back, eyes wide with disbelief. He dropped his gaze to the gun in his hand.

  “Home?” he said, pushing her gently up the slope after the others. “You ain’t going anywhere. What the hell are you doing back here, anyway?”

  Halle winced with each step, like someone stabbed her with a knife in the back of her leg. The urge to drop to the ground and vow to go no further tempted her, but Dexter kept a close watch over his shoulder; he probably wanted her on the ground.