Paradise Falls (55 page)

Elliot was yelling, but his voice was just a muffled thrum against the windows. He almost shoved his way inside. Ellison limped in with his boot cast, his hand on his gun. His father pulled his sidearm out.

Jennifer retreated to the stool and sat down, and waited.

There was yelling outside.

Then Elliot came in to the game room and shoved the doors shut behind him. He felt around for the lock, a simple bar that slid to lock the doors together, and closed it. Then he stormed over to Jennifer.

“Did they hurt you?”

Jennifer welled up and spat in his face.

Elliot recoiled as if he’d been hit, swiped at his face with one hand and raised the other to slap her, before stilling himself.

“Listen to me,” she said.

“No. You listen. I’m going to fix this. You are
not
going to defy me anymore, do you understand?”

Jennifer looked him right in the eye.

“Elliot-“

“Shut up. We’re leaving. You’re coming with me.”

“They have my sister.”

“That’s right. They’re
gonna
have her, unless you behave. That means you get up and walk out of here with me right now. Then maybe in a few days when you’re calmed down you can see her again.”

“What about Jacob?”

“What about Jacob?” Elliot repeated, in a sing-song imitation of her voice. “Jacob is fucked, that’s what’s about Jacob. No more fucking around. Grinder is making a phone call. He’s probably already dead.”

No. He wasn’t. Jennifer just knew. She could feel it, the way she could feel her arm… or the needle working in the lock. All she needed was one hand free.

Elliot moved closer. He touched her, put his hand on her cheek in some freakish imitation of tenderness. He probably saw it in a movie or something. There was nothing in him but base hatred. He hated her for not giving into him when he wanted, the way a child might hate a toy for breaking. She saw him clearly now, like he was made of glass, but found her own hate lacking. He was just pitiful. He tried to kiss her and she pulled away.

“What is
wrong
with you?” he said.

“Wrong with
me?”
she hissed. “Do you hear yourself? You’ve been nothing but a blight on my life, you miserable pile of
puke
. You stole something from me. I couldn’t be happy because of you. Then… do you even realize what you’re doing? Do you think these people will just hand Katie over to you? Or me?”

“I don’t care what happens to that fat cow,” he snapped.

“Of course you don’t. You don’t care about anybody but yourself. You didn’t care that your brother died and you don’t care about your sister, either.”

He pulled back, as if slapped.

“What?”

“Katie is your half sister. Your father has been sleeping with my mother since before any of us were born. Katie is his daughter. I hate you, and your sick father and your uncle. You’re a disease, a blight on the lives of everyone around you. You can drop whatever sick fantasy you have about ‘together’ with me, Elliot. I’ll die before I ever let you touch me again.”

“No,” he snapped, shaking her by the arms. “That’s not how it is. Dad is going to be President. I’m going to run for Congress when he runs. Uncle Adam is going to be the governor. One day
I’m
going to be President, and you’re gonna be the first lady. Your face will be on magazines in the supermarket. You and our kids.”

“You’re insane,” Jennifer said, matter-of-factly.

He grabbed her arm, and pulled her off the stool.

“You’re mine.”

“I don’t belong to you.”

“We’re leaving.”

Click.

Elliot froze. Jennifer slipped the cuff off one wrist, grabbed it, held it like brass knuckles. With all her might she pivoted on her fist and aimed right at Elliot’s nose, feeling pain jolt up her arm from the impact. Elliot stumbled back, let go, clutched at his face where blood streamed over his lips and chin.

“My fudding node, you bidch-“

Jennifer cried out in fury and hurled herself at him, bowled him over and they went down together. Elliot took the force of the fall, grunting as his shoulder hit the hard floor.

Elliot was the quarterback and captain of the team. Jennifer was strong, fast, and lithe, but Elliot was Elliot and he grabbed her arm in a crushing grip and slammed her to the floor. Her head bounced on the concrete and white flashed in her vision. Elliot threw himself on top of her and his hands closed around her throat. His face was a mask of fury, his teeth stained by his own blood from his crooked nose. His hands crushed her throat, his thumbs dug into her windpipe.

Jennifer almost reached for his hands, to free her neck, to struggle and scratch and claw and kick until the world faded to black.

“You fucking whore,” Elliot snarled, “I’ll kill you.”

Almost. Someone had been teaching her, and Elliot was Elliot and she knew what that tell-tale bulge under his left arm was. Her hand snaked up inside his suit jacket and there was a brief look of confusion on his face as she snapped the safety strap and pulled the sleek little automatic free and jammed it under his chin.

“Hands up. Now. Now, God damn you.”

Elliot let go of her neck and raised his hands.

“You so much as flinch and I will shoot you, Elliot. Hands on your head and
get off me.”

He recoiled, scooting back on his knees. Jennifer sat up, never taking the sights off his face, or her finger from the trigger.

“Mags?” she said.

“What?”

“More bullets, idiot. Slowly.”

He reached into his pocket and drew out an extra magazine. It was nickel plated, like the gun. Jennifer tilted it a little.

“Elliot, you have a pearl handled pistol,” Jennifer said. A pearl handled pistol!

“Fuck you,” he snarled. “You’re not going anywhere and you’re not going to shoot me. You’re too much of a-“

She tightened her grip and aimed right between his eyes.

“Elliot, if there is anyone in this world I have no problem killing in cold blood, it’s you. Now get up. Face away from me and keep your hands on your head.”

He turned, still on his knees, as Jennifer leaned on the pool table and got to her feet. The other side of the handcuffs was still around her wrists. Worry about that later. She needed a plan, desperately.

If it was just her she’d take Elliot hostage, take a car and leave.

She almost giggled. The adrenaline, maybe.
Listen to yourself!
Just
take him hostage.

A shake of her head cleared out the cobwebs.

“Get up. Slowly. We’re going to walk outside.”
 

As he stood, she took his collar in her hand and pressed the muzzle of the pistol to the back of his head.

“Move too fast, and I’ll pull the trigger. Open the door and call out.”

Trembling, Elliot opened the door and stepped through. Jennifer prodded him along and he called out, “Hey.”

She could hear it in his voice.

He was afraid.

He’s afraid of me.

Everything ground to a halt. Grinder and Calvin Carlyle looked over and from their expressions, one would think a unicorn just walked out of the old game room. Carlyle pulled his pistol, as did his son, Ellison. Grayson reached for something under his coat. Grinder went for his knife.

“Nobody move,” said Jennifer.

“Put the gun down, missy,” said Calvin, calmly.

Jennifer blinked. She’d never actually had a conversation with him before.

“No,” she said. She edged away from the door, to get some cover for her back. “Get my sister in here. We’re taking Elliot with us.”

“Or what?” said Grinder.

“Do whatever you do and explain why a United States Senator’s son got his brains blown out all over you.”

“You don’t have the balls.”

“Yes she does,” Ellison chirped. “She’s fucking crazy.”

“Yeah,” said Elliot. “She is.”

“Shut up, boys,” said Calvin Carlyle. “Girl, you don’t understand what’s going on here. We’ll take your sister and you come with us.”

“Not a chance in hell. My sister. Now.”

“Do it,” Elliot gurgled. “Just fucking do what she says before she shoots me. I swear to God if I get hurt my daddy will kill everyone in this goddamn building.”

“Damn it, boy,” Carlyle said, stepping closer.

“Unload your weapon,” Jennifer said calmly, “The rest of you, too. Field strip them. I’m not moving if I think I’m going to expose my back and one of you is armed. I’m not stupid.”

“Do it,” Elliot pleaded. “Please do it.”

Calvin Carlyle cleared his throat.

“I’m not disarming myself in a room full of these leathered up fuckheads.”

Grinder glared at him.

“How can he even take apart a knife?” said Ellison.

“Shut up,” Calvin snapped.

“Ellison,” said Jennifer. “You’re in charge of disarming everyone. You first. Screw with me and think of what will happen when Jacob gets his hands on you next time. I won’t stop him.”

Ellison swallowed.

“Boy,” Calvin Carlyle said, in warning.

Then his head was gone.

Jennifer flinched when the red mist hit her. The window crashed in, and Calvin Carlyle, chief of the Paradise Falls police department, bowled over, away from the window, the far side of his head fanning open and the contents blasting out in a cone that sprayed Grinder with gore and sent him reeling, before a red dot appeared on his chest, followed a moment later by a loud, wet
slap
and more blood painting the wall behind him. Ellison turned, flailing with his gun, threw himself down.

Grayson was too slow. A bullet caught him in the head and he slumped back against the wall and slid down in a trail of his own blood.

Jacob? Was it Jacob? He wouldn’t… he wouldn’t kill everyone like that, he wouldn’t… Elliot was screaming, Ellison lay on the floor wailing, the glass was shattered and Jennifer was
wet
. It was
sticky.

A voice. Not Jacob.

“Jennifer Katzenberg. Put down the gun.”

They had her. She didn’t even know who was out there. She tossed the gun aside and put her hands up. Elliot surged forward, laughing, or crying, or both.

“Elliot. Do not move.”

Elliot froze.

“Get us out of here,” he demanded.

“Silence!”

They were surrounded.

4.

Jacob knew of the place. He also knew the shortest distance between two points was a straight line, even if the straight line meant plowing through an old woman’s back yard. In a different time, in a different mood, part of him would have thought it was funny. She sat on the back porch of her trailer looking out at the farm field when the Martyr came tearing through her yard, knocked down her clothesline and chewed up a cluster of flower pots.

He’d send her a check.

Stay off the roads. They’d watch the roads and a goddamn tank was far from inconspicuous. He should have had another car for this- something smaller, faster, built for speed, but the Aston Martin was totaled and one of the old K-cars wouldn’t do the job. The front end lifted as he rolled over a berm and into corn stalks, cutting a wide channel through a dairy farmer’s silage field. The little old lady probably called the cops on him. Hopefully they’d just laugh her off and file the “tank smashed my flower pots” report with the cattle mutilations and bigfoot. He opened the throttle as much as he dared, careening over open ground at almost eighty miles an hour.

She took it easily, bouncing over ruts, the big rear tread cutting through soft earth and grinding down corn stalks when it foundered. If he opened up the throttle any more the treads would just dig in and cut a trench in the soil. She actually had to
too
much power. He should have thought of that.

I’m coming
.

His left arm was a constant pain, but it was dull now. Adrenaline or discipline or both. He sensed injuries. It hurt every time the vehicle bounced under him. When he moved his arm it was stiff. It would slow him down in a fight. He’d have to keep that in mind. His knee hurt the worst. The map on the main screen showed him making good progress. If he went by road he’d have to take the Interstate and even if they didn’t call out the national guard, it meant following a right angle- west, then south. This way he followed the hypotenuse of the triangle. The shortest path.

Her hair. They cut off her
hair
. Jennifer was so proud of her hair. He could still feel it dragging across his chest as she straddled him. Her body was the heat but her eyes were the flame, drawing him in, the look of release on her face, of joy. Joy from him.

If you hurt her, I’ll make you wish I would kill you
.

This wasn’t much of a plan. He didn’t have time for a plan. Faster. He opened the throttle more as the Martyr surged across a road and back into the farm fields. The sound of a truck horn blared behind him but he was already gone. Chatter on the CB radios. He should have one in here, and a police scanner to see if he was being followed.

What have I done
?

Take the money, take the girl and live your life. His eyes blurred until he blinked it away. So foolish. He had to play superhero. Take the shortest path. He could have done so much more. With the money he blew on toys, on
this
thing, he could have done so much for Paradise Falls. Done so much for the school, for the community. Instead, this, and look where it got him. He shook his head again. He was so damned tired. He could sleep for a million years but fatigue was like pain. A figure of wood doesn’t feel tired.

If he kept up his current speed, half an hour.

I should buy a plane,
he thought.

Elliot. Elliot had to be behind this. Jacob heard what Jennifer said to the little weasel the night before. Was it only last night? It felt like a million years ago. He probably called the Leviathans, told them to take him out, get his petty revenge. When Jacob squeezed the control yoke it was Elliot’s throat he felt, when the gauges wriggled it was Elliot’s eyes he saw, bulging out of their sockets as Jacob crushed the life out of him. The son before the father.

He knew. The old son of a bitch knew. He was feeding money overseas to fucking terrorists.