A Hard Death (34 page)

N
ash felt his rain-soaked shirt cling to the gun wedged inside his waistband. He was still scared, but something had turned inside him, and he was ready now.

Bartley would've handled it the right way from the beginning. They'd been partners until Bartley got the nod and moved over to SWAT as a sergeant, and then got the bump to detective. Nash had always felt short-changed, been sure he was every bit as good as Bartley, but now he recognized that wasn't true: Bartley had always been willing to take that one step further, to do whatever it took to get the job done. And even now, he was the one calling the shots.

The cell phone still felt warm in his pocket. Nash knew that Bartley was right: he
had
to kill Deb and Dr. Jenner—they were witnesses.

Bartley had been putting together his assault team since Nash's first call, but he still needed at least another half hour. A half hour gave Brodie too much time to get antsy about Deb and Jenner still being alive, so Nash had to get rid of them right away.

And now, Bartley was thinking much bigger, making a much bigger play. Bartley's plan would solve
all
their problems: all the evidence, all the threat, any witness who could tie them to the drugs would be gone.

And they'd be rich.

Because Bartley and Nash were going to take all the money in the farmhouse, every last fucking penny.

Just the money—there'd be drugs, too, but SWAT would need something to show for the raid, and an assault team in full gear, posing with H&K MP5s and Baker Batshields in front of seized assault rifles and stacked bricks of white powder makes for great TV. And Bartley and Nash would kill all the bad guys, make sure none of Brodie's crew made
it out alive. Nash would kill that arrogant scumbag Brodie himself. Then they'd find and hide the money, and they'd be free and clear, sitting on…well, who knew just how many millions the operation had stashed at the farm?

Everything had to go smoothly, starting with Nash's own part in the script. All he had to do was get past that first step.

It was a big one.

He didn't want them to suffer when he killed them; he'd known Deb since kindergarten. He tried to think of a way to kill them separately, without the other having any clue: he couldn't think of one. Maybe if he took Jenner outside first, took him down by the water…

As Nash walked back toward the shed, he began to cry. He tried to stop it, but he couldn't, it was all just too much. How had it ever come to this?

He squatted on the dock; he told himself,
After this, it's all finished—just one more hour and I'm out, done with this forever. Rich.

The rain was cold on his face and skin, on his scalp.

His arm shook as he reached back to check that his shirttail still covered the gun; when he pressed the Glock against his clammy skin, it felt solid and real again, a promise, a guarantee he could get through this. And he told himself it was them or him, and he breathed more comfortably.

Because it wasn't going to be him.

“
H
ey, officer. Brodie wants to know have you taken care of it yet?”

Nash looked up to see one of Brodie's men, the big half-Indian guy, standing on the dock in front of him.

Nash walked toward him, saying, “I'm just going in to do it, right now.”

Tony shrugged and said, “Well, Mr. Brodie was very clear in his instructions.”

“I know. I just needed to get myself…get ready to do it.”

“I meant his instructions to me.” Tony lifted the TEC-9 and sprayed a short burst, the bullets hitting Nash in a tight arc from his chest to his head, sending him falling backward onto the dock.

Tony put the gun down, then dragged Nash's body toward the end of the dock; halfway out, he rolled him off the side. With a splash, the body hit the shallows next to the swamp boat.

Tony picked up the TEC-9 and looked at the shed. Next!

Just as he stepped off the dock, the light in the shed went off.

Ugh. Were there going to be heroics?

God love 'em—there's only so much you can do against a man with a machine pistol.

Tony opened the door a crack and poked his head into the gloom.

“Yoo-hoo. Anybody home?”

He opened the door wider, and in the half-light felt rather than saw something glitter as it whipped toward his face.

The steel fish hook at the tip of the rod caught Tony just under the right eye, slashed his face open, carving across his nose, opening up his forehead; the blood instantly gushed down his face like a red veil. He staggered backward blindly, gasping in surprise and trying to sweep
the blood from his eyes, his gun firing a half-second burst into the dark before Jenner slammed the canoe paddle into his groin, then again into his head. Tony dropped, Jenner sprawling on top of him, punching at his face, driving his knee repeatedly into Tony's belly, into his groin, into his hip.

Jenner kept smashing Tony's bloody face, and when Tony's arms could no longer block his blows, when they slumped to his sides, Jenner rolled off him and scrabbled around the floor in the pitch black, desperate to find the gun. The hot barrel seared his fingers; he shoved the weapon around and grabbed the handle. He stood quickly, pointed the pistol down at the man, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

Deb swung the door open, and Jenner now saw Tony beneath him, a dazed figure with a bloody mask where his face should be. But he was still moving, slowly rolling himself out onto the mud in front of the shed. Jenner followed him, lifted the heavy pistol high, and smashed it into Tony's face with all his strength. He felt the bones buckle like cardboard, the force knocking the gun from his wet hands.

Jenner grabbed the knife handle, pulling it out of its sheath, a big steel blade with strips of sawtooth on the back, a big fucking shark of a blade. And he knew the knife and he grabbed a fistful of blood-matted hair and yanked Tony's head way back, and carved open his throat with the big knife, and felt the blood pour out over his arm, hot and heavy as water from a bath tap. And it felt like a good result, and Jenner carved into the neck again, pulling the blade back as hard as he could.

Behind him, Deb was feebly saying,
“Jenner! No, stop!”

But she didn't understand: this man lived to kill and torture, and he'd butchered Marty, and he had come there to kill them, and Jenner had no choice but to kill him, and if you're going to kill someone, you don't stop killing them until they're dead. Jenner knew this, Jenner had killed before: Jenner was a killer.

He let the head drop and stabbed the back of the man's neck from the side, driving the blade home until it hit bone.

Jenner lifted his arm again, but Deb caught his elbow and dropped to her knees against him in the mud, crying, holding on to him, and
murmuring, “Enough, please Jenner, enough, please stop it! He's dead, Jenner, he's dead…”

Jenner kneeled over Tony's body, crying, feeling the horror and effort and fear roaring away inside him. And then he felt her head against his, felt her hand holding his swaying forehead, felt her breast on his back. His body shook as she held him, her arms pulling him from Tony's body and into her.

He wiped the tears and the blood from his face, looked down at the body.

Tony wasn't breathing. Jenner shook Deb's arm off, reached out, felt for a pulse. There was none.

Jenner turned to her and said, “Go back inside the shed, Deb. Stay dry, okay? I'll deal with him.”

She pulled herself to her feet, wincing. She was looking at him differently now, but Jenner barely saw her at all.

J
enner needed to get rid of the body, get it out of sight. Get it out of
his
sight.

It was darker now, between the rain and the clouds that blacked out the setting sun; they were hidden from the farmhouse by the shed.

Tony had been a big man in life; in death he was massive. Jenner struggled to drag him across the muddy grass. He pulled the corpse down the slope to the short boat ramp; the rain flowing down the ramp made it easier, but the man's clothes dragged on the rough concrete, and it took all Jenner's strength to get the body down to the water.

And then Jenner was knee-deep in the brackish water, and the water supported Tony, and it got easier, and Tony floated a bit as Jenner pulled him out deeper, Jenner's feet sinking into the mud, slimy and membranous and rooty, until he was almost waist-deep in the water, and Tony was floating up against him as if he were a drowning man and Jenner the lifeguard saving him. Then Jenner let him go, pushed him out into the dark mangrove river; the body drifted forward but quickly sank under the rain-splashed surface.

And Jenner had killed the man who had killed his friend.

I
n the dull light in the shed, Deb was sitting up, her head leaning back against the bench, her arm across her belly. She'd stopped crying. When Jenner came over to her, she clutched herself with both arms, as if cold, and looked up at him. When he leaned over her, she seemed to pull away.

Jenner understood.

She said, “What did you do with his body?”

“I put him in the water. We're pretty close to the sea here, I think—the farm ends in a mangrove swamp.”

Deb nodded dully. “I'm a park ranger, Jenner—I know how the farm ends.”

She looked him up and down. “The blood's gone.”

“I had to wade him out to make sure he was deep enough.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. He was too surprised to really hit me—all he did was try to defend himself.”

Deb was crying again. “I went to kindergarten with Tom Nash.”

“I know he was your friend.” He sat next to her, back against the bench. “I don't know why they killed him. I think maybe he refused to kill us.”

“You…you think he did?”

“I don't know. But maybe.”

He sat back and watched her cry.

“We have to go, Deb. We'll take a boat, make our way down the channel to the sea.”

“They'll see us.” She looked exhausted, pale and weak.

“Not if we're quiet. Not if they're busy. Not if it's dark.”

“Then they'll hear us.”

Jenner stood and went to the window to check the farmhouse. The men were still there.

Deb said, “If it's dark, we'll get caught in the mangroves. We need to think this through. Have you ever even driven an airboat?”

He murmured, “No.”

There was movement up on the porch. One of the men stood quickly as a ground-floor window swung open. A small girl climbed through it and ran past the men, hands clamped over her ears. She ran to the Volvo, climbed inside, and slammed the door shut.

Lucy Craine.

Christ
.

The dome light inside the car stayed on for about thirty seconds. The men on the porch were all standing now, staring at her as she clambered around the passenger compartment; Jenner realized she was locking all the doors.

T
hey had to get moving.
Now
.

Brodie would realize he hadn't heard from Tony and come looking for him. More men would come for them soon.

Jenner felt Deb's pulse; a little faster than the last time he'd checked. Her bleeding might have slowed, but she was clearly washed out from blood loss and stress. He would help her move.

And Lucy Craine—what could Jenner do for her? The Volvo was in the driveway, so her grandfather had to be in the farmhouse.

Shit.

First things first. They wouldn't hurt Lucy—she was with Craine—but they would kill him and Deb.

Deb first, then Lucy.

Jenner cracked the door and peered out. He saw no one.

He slipped out into the rain, crouching as he neared the dock. Two boats—a shallow draft Go-Devil swamp boat with a large outboard motor, and a big airboat—were tied to the dock; the airboat was half up on the grass bank.

If he took either, he'd be caught. By the time he got the outboard running, the men would sprint down the slope and across the field. Then they'd just hop in the airboat and hunt them down. Besides, what if the outboard wasn't even gassed, or if he couldn't start it?

And, even beyond the deafening roar of its huge aircraft engine, the airboat was a complete nonstarter—it was controlled with a stick, like a World War I fighter plane, and Jenner had no clue how to pilot it.

Jenner saw a large green canoe lying facedown alongside the boat shed, and a canary-yellow kayak next to it. The deep grass around the canoe gave it a neglected air, but it could hold two people, whereas the slender kayak was built for one.

The canoe, then. There would be risk—it could be seen from the farmhouse porch—but he didn't have any choice. He'd be paddling alone, so it would be slow, too, but it would be silent.

He went back in, told Deb the plan. She listened and, when he'd finished, nodded somberly.

“I'll bring the canoe down to the water now, then come back for you, okay?”

“Be careful, Jenner.”

He smiled and nodded, and went out into the dark and the rain.

B
rodie watched Chip Craine, shirt untucked, face ruddy and glistening with sweat, plead with his granddaughter in the Volvo. He'd been in there five minutes; Brodie, disgusted by the whole thing, had called dinner, and the men were chowing down in Bunkhouse B.

What could that fucker possibly say to her? The girl knew what she'd heard, would've recognized the whimpering of another little girl.

But Craine had been working on Lucy her entire life, and Brodie couldn't comprehend the isolation and vulnerability Craine had engineered. A few minutes later, Chip led the sobbing child from the car, holding her little hand in his. Despite the rain, they walked to the farmhouse slowly.

As they passed Brodie, Craine gave the foreman a vulpine smile, teeth bared in triumph. He'd clearly won—or was about to win—a major victory, to move on to a new stage in his relationship with his granddaughter.

It made Brodie's skin crawl. He watched the door close behind Craine, and lingered on the deck. He thought about ringing the bell and telling Craine about the mess in the boat shed, knock the wind out of his sails, maybe buy the little girl a few more days of innocence. But his instructions were clear—completely hands-off with Craine. And even he didn't cross the people who'd made the rules.

Brodie told himself that, had it been anyone else, he'd have gone in there and killed them. This was certainly true, but it had never occurred to him to question his role in supplying Craine with girls. And even if it were pointed out to him, he'd have said it was Bentas who arranged the girls for Craine, that the girls were older than Lucy, got paid for what happened in the basement, and usually came to the farm with the consent of their guardians. Besides, they were Mexican.