Chapter Sixty
Henry pulled into Morris Brick’s driveway, and hustled out of the driver’s seat so he could open the garage door that he had earlier left unlocked. While Brick’s quaint English cottage home sat on a quiet West Hollywood street, and the property was surrounded by tall hedges and a small banyan tree, giving it a good deal of privacy, Henry would still be exposed to anyone passing by. Perspiration coated his forehead and dampened his shirt as he drove into the garage and hurried out of his car so he could close the garage door after him. He had to hope no nosy onlooker had seen him do this, and he felt breathless for a moment. A bleak smile twisted his lips as the thought struck him about what an inopportune time this would be for him to have a heart attack. He had to admit it unnerved him being in the lion’s den, so to speak. But he also had to admit Sheila’s plan made a lot of sense. Morris Brick might be tough as nails, but a chisel and hammer would shatter his skull just like anyone else’s.
Henry took several slow deep breaths. Once he felt steadier he opened the trunk and looked down at Natalie Brick, who stared back at him with a mix of fear and defiance. She didn’t try screaming for help, which showed she still had her wits about her. She had earlier complied with his orders, climbing into the car trunk and allowing him to bind her wrists and ankles together and to gag her. There was a moment when he had fumbled with the duct tape and she could’ve tried escaping, but she had believed his threat about what he would do to Rachel if she disobeyed him. At the time he couldn’t help marveling over the love this woman must have for her daughter. Anyway, that one moment had long since passed. If she screamed now with the gag in her mouth, nobody outside of the garage would hear the muffled noise she would make.
Henry dumped her onto his shoulder as if she were a bag of sand. The woman was barely a wisp and couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds. Earlier when he had brought Rachel to the house, he had left the door connecting the garage to the den unlocked. He had also forced her to give him the security code for the alarm system, letting her know in precise detail how he would kill her if she gave him the wrong code, which would be in an even more horrifying manner than how he would actually be killing her later.
He carried Natalie into the house and placed her on the carpeted floor next to Rachel, who was also gagged and bound. Both mother and daughter’s eyes filled with tears as they craned their necks so they could look at each other.
Touching, Henry thought as he watched their reunion, and then shook himself out of his stupor. He wasn’t out of the woods by any stretch. He had to move his car, which meant he’d be exposed when he left the house and also later when he came back, but it had to be done. He couldn’t have Brick coming home and finding a strange car in the garage. He moved to the front of the house so he could unlock the front door and lift a slat on the closed window blind so he could peek out and see that the coast was clear. After that he hurried back to the den and into the garage.
His gym bag had everything he’d be needing later, and he left it on the garage floor, then changed into the paint-stained dungarees and T-shirt that he wore whenever he did projects around the house. This way if anyone saw him later when he came back to the house, they’d think he was a painter or handyman doing work there. After putting on these work clothes, he reversed his earlier maneuvers: opening the garage door, pulling his car out, closing the door, and then driving three blocks away where he had earlier spotted plenty of on-street parking.
Blood roared in his ears as he walked back to Brick’s house. This was the part of the plan that he dreaded most since there was a chance Brick could’ve returned home during the ten minutes it took Henry to dump his car. It would be one thing to clobber Brick on the back of the head while the man walked unaware into his house, it would be something else entirely to walk inside there and come face to face with him. Henry was so preoccupied by this possibility that he at first didn’t hear Brick’s neighbor chasing after him as she tried to get his attention. It was only after he had walked halfway to Brick’s front door that he heard her.
“Excuse me, excuse me,” she repeated as she hurried to keep pace with him. “What do you think you’re doing here?”
Henry turned and found himself blinking stupidly at a skinny woman in her sixties wearing tight Lululemon yoga clothes, her short hair dyed an unnatural yellow. Clearly a sun worshipper who didn’t believe in sunscreen given how leathery her skin had become, almost like a saddlebag.
“I live next door to the Bricks,” she said, her expression more combative than suspicious. “I saw you driving away from here a few minutes ago.”
“What? I’m doing some work here,” Henry stumbled out. “I had to drop off supplies.”
“Natalie didn’t mention anything to me about you,” she said, a hint of doubt weakening her combativeness. “Isn’t it late in the day to be starting a job?”
Henry shrugged and was able to manage a pleasant smile. “No choice. I had to finish another job first, and this is the earliest I could make it. Better late than never, right?”
More doubt showed in her eyes as she began to believe there was a chance Henry was telling her the truth. “Do you have a business card?”
“What? Of course.” He winked at her. “Maybe you might be able to make use of my services at a future date. Especially if the Bricks are happy with what I do for them.”
He made a show of working his wallet out of his back pocket, all the while taking a step closer to her. Her guard had weakened enough that it actually seemed to surprise her when he grabbed her and swung her down to the ground. Or maybe her surprise was over how quick he had been. Whichever it was, he didn’t bother to ask her, and instead he covered her mouth with his hand to keep her from screaming. He had to give her credit the way she fought like a devil possessed. She had sunk her teeth into him and tried to tear out a chunk of his flesh, but he outweighed her by at least a hundred and fifty pounds, so she had no real chance. It didn’t take long for him to roll on top of her. Soon after that he had his hands around her throat, strangling her, and he watched as her eyes bugged out as if they were going to pop right out of her head. A minute or so after that he saw the exact moment when they became as lifeless as glass.
Their tussle had mostly been hidden by the hedges. The only way anyone was going to see them was if they walked up Brick’s driveway, but still, Henry knew time was of the essence. That at any moment someone could appear. If not a delivery man, Brick himself. Henry’s legs felt rubbery and unsteady as he carried the dead woman to the front door. A muffled cry sounded behind him as he brought her into the house. From their vantage point in the den, they must’ve both seen him. Brick’s wife and daughter. It didn’t matter. He had more pressing concerns.
Henry left the dead woman in the kitchen. A growing sense of panic filled his chest, his heart palpitating wildly. This was the first time he had looked into the eyes of any of his victims, and he didn’t much like it. It didn’t help either that he was still feeling woozy from the tire iron shot he took the other day. No doubt he was suffering concussion symptoms. Absently, he looked at the hand she had bit and slowly made sense of the fact that he was bleeding. He realized then that his DNA must’ve been in her mouth, and drops of his blood were probably left both outside and in the house. He decided it didn’t matter. The police didn’t have his DNA on record, and after today he wouldn’t be doing any more killing. The fact that they’d have his DNA wouldn’t help them catch him. Still, though, the way things had gone had left him feeling unnerved. He just wanted to be done with this.
A thought stopped him. Why should he wait for Brick? Sheila had demanded that he kill them in the same order as those other victims. Brick, his wife, then the daughter. But how would she know? He could take care of those other two now; that way he’d be able to kill Brick right away and get out of this darn house all that much faster. It would also give him something to do besides waiting around and getting more and more nervous. He thought it over some more and made a decision. He didn’t look at either Natalie or Rachel as he walked past them so he could retrieve his gym bag from the garage.
He dragged Natalie into the middle of the room and flipped her onto her stomach, then fiddled around with the iPhone stand so the recording would also capture Rachel in the background. This way, it would also help convince Sheila that he killed them in the order that she had insisted on. Once that was done, he took the chisel and hammer from the bag, held the spiky end of the chisel against the back of Natalie’s head, and swung the hammer back so he could generate enough force to break apart her skull with a single blow.
The daughter let out a strangled scream, but that wasn’t why Henry stopped the hammer suddenly when it was an inch away from the chisel. He did this because he knew Sheila would somehow see through him and know that he cheated, that he didn’t kill them in the order she had demanded. And that she would then force him to kill three more people before this could be over.
Sighing in his defeat, Henry dropped the hammer and chisel to the floor. He flipped Natalie over, and moved her so that she was against the wall and next to her daughter. A tinge of guilt fluttered inside him as he saw the way both their faces were crumpled in terror, but what was there to say?
He took the iron pipe from the gym bag and moved to the door that led to the garage. He tried not to look at either of them as he waited for Brick. Sooner or later, this would all be over.