Jake Caldwell Thrillers Read online

  Ten minutes later, the man hefted himself into a beat-up truck and rumbled out of the parking lot. Jake followed, keeping some distance between them. Did this guy work for Langston? Maybe Langston’s local supplier?

  The truck rolled toward downtown, bouncing up and down with each curve of the road. Apparently new shocks were not high on the owner’s list of priorities. A Benton County Sheriff’s car passed, and the fat man’s head turned toward the side mirror to ensure it kept going. Jake followed the right guy.

  A few minutes later, they cruised down Main Street and the truck turned toward the Community Center. Jake passed and angle parked in front of an antique store. With the courthouse and jail to his back, he walked down an inclined sidewalk, pausing at the corner of the building, the Community Center in front of him. He snuck a peek around the brick. The fat man stood twenty feet away in an empty back alley talking to two other guys with matching hair styles—too long and too dirty. Jake overheard something about some guy named Willie, a shipment and a warehouse.

  Jake considered tailing the guy in the hopes that he could lead him to Langston, but that could take time he didn’t have. Besides, being stealthy was not in his wheelhouse of skills. The fat man could tell him what he needed to know, or Jake could beat it out of him. Jake stepped around the corner and the trio in front of him stopped talking and watched his approach.

  “Afternoon, fellas,” Jake said. The three of them stepped back into a neat line covering the breadth of the alley. The fat man in the middle, the other two on either side like matching white-trash bookends.

  “Help you?” the fat man asked.

  “Maybe. For your sake, I hope so.” Jake stopped within arm’s reach; his hands relaxed at his sides.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “I need some information and you’re going to give it to me.”

  “Or what?”

  “Let’s not let it get to that,” Jake said. “I saw you dealing at the Walmart.”

  The fat man moved with surprising quickness and grabbed Jake by the shirt, slamming Jake against the brick wall of the building while the two long-haired guys pressed in on either side. They were identical twins. Not big, but ugly and wiry.

  “Who the fuck are you?” the fat man asked.

  Jake grinned. “You’re gonna find out in about two seconds if you don’t take your hands off me.”

  “Kick his ass, Bub.” At least Jake had a name to work with.

  “I ain’t gonna ask again, dickhead,” Bub said.

  “I’m not here to start any shit. I just need some information.”

  “You a cop?”

  “Do I look like a cop?”

  “You look like an asshole,” Bub said.

  “I’m gonna be if you don’t take your hands off me and take two steps back. Last warning.”

  Bub’s face remained inches from Jake’s, his breath a horrible concoction of cigarettes, garlic and teeth that hadn’t been brushed in a week. He released Jake and stepped back. Not a big one. The twins remained on either side, clenching their fists. The one on his left held something behind his leg. Arm down at his side, angling his body away.

  “Okay,” Bub said, “what do you want?”

  “A guy who owes me some money. Shane Langston.”

  The twins shot a look to Bub who, to his credit, remained stone-faced. But his eyes gave him away. The same look in the eyes of a guy at the poker table who didn’t like the last card the dealer laid down. The reason some guys wear sunglasses at the table—eyes never lie.

  “Never heard of him,” Bub said.

  “That so? Looks to me like you do.”

  “What’s he owe you money for?”

  “That’s between me and him. Look, I’ll make it worth your while if you point me in the right direction.”

  Bub clearly considered the proposition for a moment, then glanced to one of the twins. “Hank, point this asshole in the right direction.”

  Hank swung his arm high and wide, aiming at Jake’s head. Too slow and telegraphed. The two-foot metal pipe whistled overhead as Jake ducked, twisted and unleashed a vicious jab into Hank’s solar plexus. His fist sunk in and the air whoofed out. Hank was done.

  Jake kept low and shot his good leg out at the other twin, not catching him flush with the back kick, but a solid enough to provide some distance. Bub swung a haymaker at Jake’s head that he easily side slipped. Bub’s over-swing carried him toward the brick wall of the building and Jake helped him along that path with a palm strike to the back of his head. His face cracked into the stone with a satisfying smack. He threw a jab and a left hook to the glass jaw of the advancing twin who was unconscious before he hit the ground. Jake turned back to Bub.

  Bub breathed heavy, eyes dazed and blood running down his chin. Hank wheezed on his hands and knees, trying to suck in air. Bub raised his fists in a fighter’s stance and edged forward. Jake danced to the side, keeping Hank between them. Bub tried to move forward and circle around, but Jake mirrored him, waiting for him to do something stupid.

  “Stand still, you chicken shit,” Bub grunted.

  Jake grinned, continually circling. “Tell me where I can find Shane Langston and I’ll let you walk out of here with your ugly teeth intact.”

  “You talk big for running away.”

  “So catch me, fat boy.”

  “Go fuck yourself.” Bub lunged. Jake shot out a straight jab and caught the taller man squarely in the eye. Bub stopped cold, and Jake followed with a jab to the gut and a swinging elbow to the chin. Bub dropped to the ground on top of Hank. That had to hurt worse than Jake’s punch.

  Jake started forward when the wail of a siren closed in fast down the hill from Main Street. He had no desire to tell Bear his reason for rousting the local drug dealers and he’d never make it down the other side of the back street before the cops got there. A door marked “Deliveries” beckoned from the brickwork a few feet away. Jake darted to the door, which opened into a cluttered storeroom, dimly lit by interspaced overhead fluorescents casting shadows on dusty furniture and shelves lined with knick knacks. He made his way to a set of stairs and climbed to the main floor, to the front door and back out to Main Street.

  A small crowd of onlookers stared down the hill toward the Community Center, the flashing lights of the police car bouncing off the adjacent buildings. He jumped in his truck and smacked the steering wheel. Though he had no doubts Bub worked for Langston, he was no closer to finding his target than when he started. Wait, Bub had said something about a warehouse. Maybe it was the Global Distribution Center.

  Jake turned into a gas station and parked in the back corner. He grabbed his cell phone and scrolled through his contacts list. Dwight owed him a favor. He answered on the second ring.

  “Dwight, Jake Caldwell,” Jake said.

  Silence filled the line followed by a heavy sigh. “What do you need?”

  “To collect on the favor you owe me.”

  “What favor?”

  “The favor where I spotted you the five hundred bucks you owed Keats and didn’t break your face. Or do I need to come over and remind you?”

  “Oh, yeah. That favor. What is it?”

  “You still a computer pirate?”

  “Among other things.”

  “Need you to see what you can find on a Global Distribution Center in Sedalia.” Jake read him the address. “Looking for ownership records, tax filings, anything interesting you can dig up.”

  “What’s this for?”

  “Don’t worry your shitty comb-over head about it. Just call me when you get something.” Jake’s brain flashed to the bundle of envelopes in the back of Langston’s drawer. “Oh and find out what you can about Marion Holdings and its ties to a guy named Shane Langston.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Just a guy I’m digging into. And keep it quiet. Call me as soon as you can later today?”

  “Today?”

  “Yeah, unless you want that visit. I
’ll even forgive the last two hundred you still owe me.”

  Dwight grunted. “I’ll call you in a couple hours.”

  Jake hung up, pleased the wheels were turning. Slowly, but they were turning. Time to head home and deal with Stony.

  Chapter Fifteen

  By three o’clock, the sun blazed overhead in a cloudless sea of blue and the temperatures climbed to the upper eighties. A light breeze blew in from the west, a tornado of fallen leaves swirling in the drive. Jake and Janey worked in unison to deposit Stony’s gaunt frame into the front seat of the truck. As Jake leaned over him to fasten his seatbelt and tuck in the afghan around his legs, he caught a sour whiff of body odor mixed with the smell of old, wet leaves. Stony cried out and grasped at his belly. Jake muttered sorry and quickly pulled away as the seatbelt clicked.

  He shut the door to the pickup and faced Janey’s tear-filled eyes. Jake had the conflicting urges to yell at her for being emotional over their rotten bastard of a father, and to comfort her with a warm hug. Instead, he settled for the middle of the road and shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his blue jeans and alternated glances between Janey and the fascinating chunks of gravel at his feet.

  “You sure this place is gonna work?” she asked.

  Jake covered the details with her earlier in the living room. No matter who their clientele, Hospice House did miracles comforting the dying and their families. More than a man like Stony deserved, but he decided not to antagonize her with that point. She dabbed the corners of her eyes with a tissue from her pocket.

  “It’s a nice place, Janey. He’ll be fine there, and they’ll make him comfortable for the homestretch.”

  “And the nurses? They seem okay?”

  “Better than okay.” Jake grinned.

  “What?” she asked. “What are you smiling about?”

  “One of the nurses on his wing,” he said. “Maggie.”

  “Maggie? Your Maggie?”

  Their reunion flashed across his brain. The way his shirt smelled like her all the way back to the house, the lilac drifting into his nose. The feel of her body perfectly against his, taking him back to a sleeping bag under the stars in the woods. Her naked, eighteen-year-old body entwined in his, firm breasts molded against his chest, still warmly inside her, her delicious sweaty brow. He could still feel her soft lips grazing his ear as she whispered she loved him.

  “Yeah, my Maggie. How did you not know she worked there?”

  “I don’t pay attention where every resident of Benton County works.”

  “She still live over there?” he asked, pointing over a clump of trees and a rise of land.

  “As far as I know. I don’t pay attention to where every resident of Benton County lives, either. I’ve got too much other stuff going on to track your old girlfriend. She left town a few months after you did. Came back a couple years later.”

  “She looked good. Real good,” he said.

  “Well? What did she say?”

  “Nothing much.” Jake shifted from foot to foot, anxious to get going. He wasn’t sure if the anxiety came from the prospect of getting rid of Stony or possibly seeing Maggie again. “She gave me a big hug, we talked for a few minutes and I headed here.”

  “Bull,” Janey said, playfully pushing Jake back into the body of his truck. “You haven’t seen her since forever ago and that’s it?”

  Forever ago. A wave of guilt slapped away the happy vision of Maggie. He kicked a rock with the scuffed toe of his boot and sent it into the brush.

  “I left her,” he said at last, pissed for letting the happy thoughts rip south so quickly. He glanced to Janey, the joy fading from her face like the air sputtering out of a pierced balloon. “I left you. I left Nicky. I left everyone behind like the selfish prick I am.”

  “But you’re back now.” Janey put a cool hand on his arm. “You’re back now.”

  “Yeah, but just to fix things. That’s all I know how to do,” he said, shuffling around the back of the truck and climbing in.

  Janey stepped on the running board, crossing her arms on the open window. She reached forward and picked up a corner of the afghan, wiping a tiny trail of spittle from their father’s chin.

  “Maybe Stony isn’t the only thing you came back to fix.” She dropped her eyes then herself back to the ground and walked to the house.

  Stony slumped against the seat, head lolling on his shoulder, the exact pose he modeled after Jake and Nicky would find him passed out in a bar and haul him home. This time, instead of passed out against the door, bloodthirsty cancer cells chewed him up from the inside.

  Jake fired up the truck and rolled down the hill to Poor Boy Road. As he did, he looked up to a grassy clearing overlooking the picturesque valley, the clearing where many years ago he last held Maggie Holden. The night he fled Warsaw for good.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jake hit the outskirts of Sedalia heading toward Hospice House. Would he end up this way? Being driven by someone else to die alone. It was possible. Life was full of wicked twists and ragged turns. He’d never have guessed he’d be a leg breaker for the mafia when he was a dumb, hormonal teenager. They skipped that option on career day.

  At seventeen, Jake had the world by the tail. He owned the starting running back and linebacker positions for the high school team, all but promised a full ride scholarship from Kansas State University to go play for the legendary Bill Snyder, and he was madly in love with the head cheerleader. Every muscle on his tall physique popped and he could run down the sun, lean and solid as a rock. He ran his own summer training routine getting ready for his senior year, chopping logs in the woods behind the house and hoisting them up the hill, building endurance and stamina. This would be his time to shine, to get away from Stony.

  He talked about escaping Warsaw incessantly. Anyone who listened heard his grand scheme of playing Division 1 football for a top twenty program. Jake would make something of himself, something beyond scrapping for jobs like Stony, or schlepping away for minimum wage at the lumber yard like Nicky. Something more than getting stoned on cheap beer at a smoky, local bar, throwing punches, and fishing on the lake with a bad hangover.

  Every time he talked about getting out, he directed it at Stony. Each whip of the belt, each bruise that showed up on his brother’s face, and each promise Stony broke provided the fuel that burned his excellence on the field. His disdain for his father grew with every weight he pressed, every bone-crushing tackle he made, and every mile he ran. The anger would have eaten him whole, if it hadn’t been for Maggie.

  Strikingly beautiful with cascading hair and a taut, athletic figure, Maggie could stop conversation in a room with a smile. She and Jake fit together like perfect puzzle pieces, both burning with the desire to get away and do something meaningful with their lives.

  As he broke the city limits of Sedalia, a dark row of heavy clouds rolled in from the northeast, still a way off but likely to dump on the area within the next couple hours. His knee ached in familiar places as the atmospheric pressure changed and he rubbed the scar to make it go away. Stony groaned as the truck bounced over a pothole and Jake was cast to the worst night of his life.

  Jake and Bear skipped rocks by the creek and drank beer lifted from Stony’s stash in the fridge, Jake’s sweat-soaked T-shirt thrown over his brawny, tanned shoulders. Bear left his shirt on, not wanting to endure Jake’s jokes about his weight. They talked about football and the upcoming two-a-day practices on the Warsaw High field. Their senior year and they’d be the Dynamic Duo. Bear held them up on the line and Jake knocked them down. Ten games, graduation and they’d both be gone to Kansas State.

  Jake reached into the stream and tossed one of the last two beer cans to Bear. They drank and continued the rock skipping contest. Stony hadn’t shown his face for three days. He and Bear would cruise the watering holes in town daily until they found Stony’s beat up Ford. The truck moved so at least they were certain Stony wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere. Jake could give
two shits if Stony came home, life moved easier without him. Nicky had a job and brought home the occasional groceries, but he showed up almost as rarely as Stony. Jake and Janey cooked a decent meal together, and nobody kept him from rolling up the hill late at night to be with Maggie.

  “I’d better get going.” Bear crushed his empty beer can and belched loud enough to shake the bark from the nearby trees. “My mom’s making meatloaf tonight and will beat my ass if I’m late.”

  “You’d better watch the weight or you’re not going to be able to move on the d-line,” Jake said, draining the rest of his beer.

  “Suck it, Caldwell. I’m an all-powerful, monstrous beast of destruction.”

  “Teams will tremble at your feet.”

  “They will beg for mercy,” Bear shouted. “I set ’em up…”

  “I knock ’em down,” Jake responded, bumping knuckles with his best friend.

  They trudged up the hill, Jake with the axe over his shoulder, Bear carrying an armful of logs. The sun burned overhead, just beginning its descent to the west. Janey read a book at the picnic table snuggled under a grove of trees in front of the house. Stony had chained the table to a nearby tree for some reason. Nobody could figure out why. One wrong move would turn the thing into a pile of kindling. Janey waved as the two approached.

  “Your sister’s looking good, Caldwell,” Bear said, waggling his eyebrows.

  “Keep your dick away from her. She’s too young.”

  “Sweet sixteen, baby. Old enough.”

  “Fifteen, perv. Not sixteen until next month and still too young and thin for your ass. You need one of those mamas in the muumuus.”

  “You can come for dinner, you know,” Bear said, stopping at his car. “My mom loves you. I think she’d adopt you if Stony would let her.”

  “Stony wouldn’t give a shit. I’d tell her to start the paperwork if it wasn’t for Janey.”

  “All right, later dude. Tell Maggie hey.”