24

Lee followed Riso’s killer back into the house with the armed man trailing close behind. They met with Zala who had dragged herself to her feet to wait near the front door. She raised her arms above her head when she saw the gun. In the short silence, her eyes quickly darted around, studying Lee and then Riso’s friend, hoping to grasp an understanding of what had happened. As the men approached, she took a few steps away from the doorway, allowing them inside.

Lee entered the house as Zala and her accomplice lined up in front of the stairs. He heard the door slam shut behind him. The wind helped it close with an angry gust and it rattled in its frame, sending a shockwave of vibrations through the floor.

In the light of the house, he studied the man wielding the gun. He was disheveled and bedraggled. He wore all black: loose-fitting black trousers, dusty black shoes, and a black T-shirt underneath a black jacket. He even wore a black baseball cap. His skin was pale and sickly. His face was rough; his gray eyes were baggy and tired. The menacing orbs studied their surroundings with quick fleeting glances and seemed to glow with a manic ferocity when they met with another gaze.

Stubble pricked through his skin and covered his chin and cheeks. He looked no older than forty and already the hairs on his face were beginning to match the color of his skin. His hair glittered with silver strands.

“Who are you?” The question had been on Lee’s lips, but it was the man in black who asked it, his gun aimed at the Lechnens’ accomplice.

“I should be asking you the same question,” the casual criminal replied cockily, apparently unaware of any danger.

“I’m the one with the gun,” the newcomer reminded him sternly.

“Fair enough. I’m …” he paused, shooting a look at Lee.

“Yes?”

“I’m nobody,” he said, smiling lightly.

The gunman nodded. “Good,” he said in a placid tone, nodding and smiling before unceremoniously squeezing the trigger. The suppressor sucked some of the noise out of the shot, but the lethal device still thundered, shaking the house and causing Lee to grasp at his ears.

The cocky accomplice, who had delivered the fatal blow to his partner in crime, dropped straight to the floor. His legs folded inward, his backside resting upon his heels. His lifeless face looked toward the ceiling, his dead eyes toward the heavens. A fresh bullet hole above his right eye leaked a steady stream of blood over his face, coloring his features.

Zala sobbed a muffled scream as she saw the man crumple to his knees out of the corner of her eyes. She didn’t dare turn to look. She stared at the gunman, watching as he aimed the gun at her.

“And you?” he asked, a sickeningly sadistic smile on his face. His deluded eyes seemed to sparkle, reveling in her fear.

“Zala, Zala Lechnen,” she quickly answered, clearing her throat.

“Good.” He paused, watching the fear in Zala’s eyes as he steadied the gun’s aim around her face. He waited until fear ran uncontrollably through her body, forcing her into more tears. She closed her eyes and waited for him to pull the trigger.

Grinning, he shifted the gun to Lee. “Hello again,” he said.

“Do we know each other?” Lee tried his best to maintain eye contact.

“Not really. I’m a friend of a friend, so to speak.”

“I don’t have any friends.”

“You did.” He grinned and then waved the gun toward the living room. “Get in there,” he ordered. “Sit down.”

Zala sat next to Lee on the sofa. They exchanged brief and awkward glances but didn’t utter a word. The gunman wandered around the room, fascinated with the scenes of carnage. Lee and Zala sat in silence, too afraid to move. Not only was the stranger carrying a loaded gun, but he seemed to have no quarrels about using it.

After a few seconds, the pale-faced maniac returned with the baseball bat that had killed Riso and injured Lee. He handed it to Lee. “Hold this.”

Lee obeyed and grabbed the bat by the handle. The gunman pushed it up and down, rubbing the entire handle of the bat against Lee’s willing hands.

“Thank you,” he said politely, removing it from Lee’s grasp. He produced a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped away his fingerprints from the parts of the bat he had touched before tossing it to the floor, where it bounced off Riso’s corpse and landed on the soft carpet.

A breath escaped Riso’s dead lungs as the bat bounced off his chest, almost unnoticed by the two men but not by Zala. The fear and tension in her body was now so intense, she began to twitch and shudder uncontrollably.

“What’s going on?” Lee wanted to know. He felt increasingly awkward, angry, and pitiful sitting next to Zala. He could feel her presence and her heat. He also felt the suppressed sobs and violent shudders that rocked her body. He knew he couldn’t rely on her for a joint escape effort—fear had paralyzed her and loss had made her passive.

The gunman walked around the sofa and stood in front of the television, demanding attention from both his subjects. His eyes were fixed lustfully on Zala, but he spoke to Lee. “I’ve been to this house before,” he declared.

“Who are you?” Lee demanded to know.

He dragged his eyes away from Zala and focused a sly smile at Lee. “Patrick Rose,” he said genuinely, reaching out his free hand for Lee to shake.

Lee accepted the gesture and reached to meet the hand.

“Fuck off.” The gunman quickly withdrew. “As if,” he laughed immaturely.

“What do you want?” Lee begged.

“I could name a few things,” Patrick said lustfully, his eyes bearing a hole through Zala as he licked his lips.

“Fuck you!” Zala tried to break her passivity, her words harsh but her tone soft.

“Maybe later, darling.” He blew her a kiss. “First we have some business to attend to.” He turned back to Lee. “You,” he pointed aggressively with the gun, “you killed your wife a year ago and then—”

Lee sighed, “No, no, no,” he shook his head. “That’s why you’re here? You’re one of them? Don’t you think this is a little extreme?” he barked with frustration and disbelief.

“What are you talking about, piss-stain?” the gunman spat the insult like a carefree teenager.

“You think I killed my wife so—”

“Correction,” Patrick interrupted. “I know you didn’t kill your wife. I know for a fact,” he stated with a sure nod.

Lee nodded, thinking he was dealing with a deluded pervert. “Oh, in that case, where were you a year ago when I needed you?” he asked sarcastically.

“I was killing your wife,” Patrick replied plainly, smiling as he watched Lee’s jaw drop.

“You?”

“Yes, me,” he said proudly. “Only I didn’t really—”

“Why?” Where there should have been anger, Lee could only feel awakening remorse and bewilderment.

“Because I loved her,” Patrick replied bluntly, with a smile that suggested a lot more.

Lee’s eyebrows raised in confusion.

“I was fucking her behind your back.” Patrick laughed. “She had many ‘late nights at the office’ at my house. Every night for a year, I pounded that sweet pussy.” He flashed a sickly grin that angered Lee.

“You’re lying,” Lee accused, hoping he was.

“God’s honest truth.” He held his hand to his heart and laughed.

“But … why …” Lee was at a loss for words. He’d spent many sleepless nights thinking about meeting Jennifer’s killer. Not only did he want to tear him limb from limb but he had so many questions. He struggled to recall any.

Patrick merely shook his head. “They were the best months of my life, such a tight ass.” His eyes flickered as he remembered. “It was a shame really.”

“Why?” Lee felt his body tear in two, half of him screamed in anger, the other half sat back in frozen disbelief. Sorrow sided with both halves.

“It’s a long story.”

“We have all night,” Zala chimed in.

Patrick looked at the Austrian with shock at first, but his features gradually converted back to their lustful roots. “Okay, little lady,” he said, “just for you. If you must know …” he took a few steps back, until he was leaning against the back wall.

“I was married when I first started seeing her. At first it was only once a week, if that—it was just a sexual thing. I don’t think she was too happy at home, she either wasn’t getting any or what she was getting wasn’t any good.” He glanced at Lee, waiting for retaliation, but Lee was still in shock. “Things started to get more intense. My wife started to work away so I made sure I worked at home.” He winked at Lee but he was still unresponsive.

“Eventually we were seeing each other every day. Then my wife lost her job.” He shifted his position on the wall. “She was home all the time, complaining, nagging …” A scowl crossed his face as he recalled. “I hated that fucking bitch.”

He took a deep breath before continuing, “One night, she caught me and Jennifer at it. She was supposed to be at her sister’s house but … well, she wasn’t. Jennifer watched me argue with her, she couldn’t help it. My wife dragged her into it. Before we knew what was going on, my wife had gone fucking bonkers and grabbed a knife. She chased me around the bedroom. She nearly fucking killed me but Jennifer came to my aide. She knocked her out with a golfing trophy …” His evil eyes shone and he tapped the barrel of the pistol against his skull. “Or at least she thought she’d knocked her out.”

Lee looked deep into the gunman’s eyes.

“You see, Joseph,” Patrick said. “Your wife killed my wife.”

“No,” Lee denied softly.

“Yes.” Patrick laughed. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m fucking glad she did—but it did cause some problems. Together we buried the body in the back garden, and that would have been the end of that if Jennifer hadn’t had a crisis of fucking conscience.” He threw his hands up in the air. “She told me she wanted to go to the police. She said she’d take all the blame, blah blah blah. The fact was: I couldn’t let her do that. I was as involved as she was. I dug the grave, for fuck’s sake. I couldn’t allow Jennifer to give us up.”

“So you killed her?” Zala quizzed.

Patrick nodded. “But I made a few mistakes. You,” he looked at Lee, “should have been implemented in the murder. You should have been locked up. I was in the process of setting you up when I heard you getting out of the shower.”

“You tried to set me up?”

“Tried and failed, but everyone deserves a second chance, don’t they?”

“You bastard,” Lee leapt up from the sofa and charged at the gunman like a raging bull. The man in black anticipated the attack, stepped to the side, and rammed the butt of the pistol across his face. The metal crunched against his jaw, dislodging two teeth and reverberating through his cheek bones. He dropped to the floor at his attacker’s feet.

“Nice try,” Patrick said blandly. “You know, you should have never been so trusting of Jennifer. She was a beautiful and sweet girl, with a body that anyone would love to get inside …” He retrieved something from the back of his memories that brought a lurid smile to his face. “All those late nights she spent at the office, all those ‘neighborhood parties’ and ‘visits’” he said, making air quotes.

Lee coughed violently and spat at Patrick’s feet.

“She hated the neighbors just as much as you. I mean, she spoke to them occasionally. She kept up appearances … but nothing more. It was all lies to keep you away. If she said she was going to see them for a coffee and a chat, she knew you’d refuse to tag along.” He looked down at Lee and laughed. “She couldn’t use work as an excuse all the time, so she used your social hatred against you. Whenever she popped out to borrow a cup of sugar, believe me, she was getting something a lot sweeter.”

Lee angrily swung for Patrick’s leg, but his attempt was ushered away with a shift kick. Steel-toed boots crushed against his palms and he recoiled.

“I lived across the street from you, for fuck’s sake,” Patrick continued to gloat. “I was your horny wife’s convenient holiday home.” He laughed again.

“Fuck you!” Lee screamed. Saliva dripped madly from his mouth, shooting out in torrents as he bellowed angry words. “You fucking bastard!”

Patrick merely smiled. He concentrated his attention on Zala, smiling at her at first, as if he had just noticed her from across a crowded room and was trying to make a gentle approach. He then wondered: “So, have you two …?”

“No,” Zala answered sharply.

“You’re not missing out on much, darling,” Patrick assured. “Just ask Jennifer.”

Lee spat another glob of blood at the man above him but was quickly pushed back to the floor by the heel of his boot.

“You look a lot like her. I suppose that’s the whole point, isn’t it? That’s why you came here to con him. You hoped that this little unsociable bastard would pay attention to you because you look so much like his dead wife.” He paused to look around the room, noting the two dead men. “Clearly, you fucked up.”

“It’s your fault,” Zala said, her tone tired and defeated. “Rose,” she said, as if plucking the name from her memory. “It’s your house—you were the one who forced us out, you’re the reason Riso is dead.”

“No.” Patrick shook his head slowly. “I didn’t kill your husband. His own stupidity did that for him. It’s rather ironic that you picked my house to squat in, though, don’t you think?”

Lee could hear Zala sigh. “What do you want?” she asked. The knowledge of the assailant’s identity seemed to dispel some of her fear.

“I want you two to come with me.” He kicked Lee, prodding him in the chest with the tip of his boot. “Get up, prick,” he ordered. “We’re going across the road to do a little digging.”

Lee stumbled out of the house with Zala and Patrick close behind. Patrick, who had taken a liking to Zala, held her by the hand as he ushered her out of the house. Lee wasn’t sure whether the man was a sadistic joker who enjoyed toying with Zala or whether he was a maniac who actually wanted to hold her hand and keep her close. Clearly he was a maniac, but to what degree, Lee had yet to discover.

Lee trudged across the street with an apathetic mind. He had always wanted to discover the identity of Jennifer’s killer, but everything that had come with learning that identity had taken him somewhere he didn’t want to go. Not only was Jennifer having an affair, but she had killed someone. The image of the sweet and innocent woman who had loved him despite everything and would continue to love him had vanished. Inside of him, where there should have been anger or fear, there was only a black hole.

“Hey!” Zala screamed.

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Patrick said through gritted teeth. “You’ll wake up the fucking neighbors.”

“You grabbed my ass.”

“You should be happy, you have a nice ass. It was a compliment.” He gave her a wink.

Lee found it hard to believe that Jennifer, his Jennifer, had found anything worth loving in the sleazy sadist.

“You fucking pervert.”

“Now, now … calm down. I hate it when we fight.”

The three crossed the road and walked down the side of what was, for a short time, the Lechnens’ house. They made their way to the back garden where Patrick instructed them to head for the bottom, the part that Lee and Riso had left unfinished.

There were two shovels waiting for them. Lee stopped and waited for Patrick, who was cheekily trying to cuddle an aggressive and agitated Zala.

“Keep your fucking hands off me,” she warned.

“I really don’t like it when you talk to me like that.”

“I don’t fucking—”

Patrick drove the butt of the pistol into her face. The metal crushed her nose and sliced through the skin on her cheek. She spun away and clutched her wounds.

“Like I said. I don’t like it when you talk like that.” He reached forward and pulled her hand away from her face. He studied the marks. “Damn, look what you’ve made me do. We’ll have to get that cleaned up before we do anything.” He let her hand drop and turned his attention to Lee.

Zala spoke before he did: “Do anything?” she repeated worryingly.

Patrick smiled and gazed into her once twinkling and now horrified eyes, “What did you think I was going to do with you?” His eyes gleamed as he spoke.

“I … I …” Zala stuttered, “I don’t know.”

“After we frame this little prick here.” He waved the gun at Lee. “You and I are going on a little journey. I have a cabin a few hours from here. Once we get there I’ll show you a good time.”

“No!” Zala spat, her voice splitting. “I won’t let you touch me.”

Patrick showed her the gun. “I’m sure I can convince you.” He smiled and reached for her face. “You really do look a lot like her,” he said softly, sweetly, caressing the skin below her wounds. “I thought I’d never find anybody as sweet as Jen but you … you’re something else.”

Zala slapped his hand away, pushing him away. Patrick laughed, a throaty cackle.

She looked across at Lee, her eyes bore deeply into his. For a second she allowed him to see that she was scared, desperate, and sorry. She wanted his help. He saw a deep-rooted fear in her moist eyes, a desire to be saved.

“You,” Patrick attracted Lee’s attention, waving the gun around. “Dig,” he instructed, aiming the barrel at the ground.

Lee picked up the shovel and stuck it in the mud. Patrick’s attention turned back toward Zala. “I wish I could take you inside right now,” he said lustfully, almost drooling.

Zala turned away in disgust. As she turned, she caught Lee’s gaze and they stared at each other; Zala apologetic, Lee unforgiving.

He made his first cut through the grass and mud.

____

“What exactly is your plan?” Lee wondered, breathlessly. He had only dug five shovelfuls and sweat had already formed on his bloodied forehead.

Throughout his digging, Zala had been watching him, Patrick had been watching Zala, and Lee had fixed his eyes on the ground.

“This is not a Bond movie, Mr. Lee,” Patrick said simply.

“You have a gun, so you keep reminding us, what am I going to do? Just tell me.”

Patrick turned away from Zala and looked suspiciously at Lee, weighing him up. “I’m going to finish something I started years ago.”

“What was that?”

“It’s simple, really. The police discover the bodies of this little madam’s husband.” He tilted his head to Zala. “And his friend …” He paused and pondered his words momentarily.

“Hmm,” he said after much contemplation.

“Hmm?” Joseph wondered.

Patrick shot an aggressive look at Lee. “You fucked up my plan a little bit,” he said after a short silence.

“Sorry.” Lee almost laughed.

“It’s okay,” Patrick said, seemingly missing the point. “I’m sure I can work a way around it.”

Lee nodded in disbelief as the maniac gently tapped the barrel of the gun to his chin, his mind running through a series of scenarios. Eventually he said, “If you hadn’t have killed that big fucker things would have been a lot easier.”

“I do apologize.”

“I know!” A lightbulb flashed above the psychopath’s head. “He was getting too close to discovering your truth: that you killed my wife and buried her in this garden. To shut him up, you killed him, disposing of his pathetic little friend in the crossfire.” He seemed satisfied with his conclusion.

“The police arrive and after a bit of digging, so to speak, they find out that you killed my wife, which leads them to the conclusion that you and her were having an affair, ultimately giving you motive to kill Jennifer. They’ve practically been begging for evidence to lock you away and, once we get your prints all over her, they’ll have what they want.”

“You expect me to just sit back and let you do that? I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in prison.” Lee wiped his brow, removing a line of sweat and blood.

“I don’t and you won’t. Ah damn, now look what you’ve done. You’ve ruined the surprise … You see.” he grinned sadistically. “I’m going to kill you. Well, technically, she will kill you.” He motioned to Zala. “Before going on the run. You see, there’s something Little Miss Sweet-fuck hasn’t told you: she’s wanted in three countries. If the police get their hands on her, she’ll be spending the next twenty years behind bars.” He smiled crudely, lifting a hand to gently stroke Zala’s tear-stained cheek. “That would be such a terrible waste.”

“So,” he concluded, snapping out of whatever lurid fantasy his lustful brain had concocted. “I’ll be taking her with me. Just to keep her safe, of course.”

Lee didn’t react. He remained placid, indifferent. “So why am I digging up your wife?” he wondered.

“Because I buried her, there’s too much evidence linking me down there. I want you to dig it up and shift that evidence onto you. You’ll stick her in the van outside.” He looked to Zala. “Your husband was so kind to leave me the keys. Well, they were in his pocket, but I’m sure he won’t mind me taking them. I can make it look like Lee got scared and tried to move the body.”

Lee nodded and picked up the shovel to continue his work while Patrick lusted over Zala, keeping a safe distance from Lee as he did so.

____

Joseph paused after only a couple of digs, his body aching. His head still throbbed from the earlier blow, as did his legs. The effort of digging exaggerated those pains and created more.

He turned toward Patrick, expecting to be ordered to continue or whipped into action, but the gun-wielding madman was far too interested in Zala. He had forced himself closer to the bereaved Austrian. With the gun in his right hand, aimed at her head, he scooped her in his left arm, dragging her body to his. He whispered things in her ear as she squirmed, her face a picture of disgust.

“Get away from me,” she begged, trying to shove him away.

“You like to play hard to get, do you?”

“You’re fucking sick,” Zala protested. She pushed him backward, swinging wildly with her left arm. Her knuckles struck hard against his temple and he stumbled, just managing to retain his grip on the gun.

Still rocked from the blow, he advanced on Zala with a ferocious lust in his eyes. Zala kicked out. Her pointed boots drilled into Patrick’s shins and, with a shocked groan, he almost dropped to his knees. Using his uninjured leg to keep his balance, he rushed upright and pounced on her. He wrapped a hand around her mouth, silenced her screams. He squeezed his palm tight, cutting her lip on her own teeth.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said sternly, bringing his face close to hers.

He drove his knee into her stomach. Instantly her face twisted as the breath was sucked out of her. She tried to scream, but to no avail. He slid his hand away from her mouth, grabbed her hair, and yanked it back with almost enough force to snap her neck.

Zala squealed.

“I think I need to teach you a lesson.” He raised his hand above her face, showing her the ominous sight of the gun, her painful fate. “I hope this—”

He finished with a muffled scream.

The blade of a shovel crashed into his fist. A sickening sound of breaking bones and popping knuckles overlapped the agonizing yelp as his hand was smashed to a pulp. The gun flew from his grasp, spinning into the darkness. It landed out of view in the soft muddy ground.

Patrick looked down at his hand, horrified. Two fingers had snapped and pointed backward. His middle finger had bent sideways and rested on the top of his palm. His little finger had been crushed, resting horizontally across his knuckles with the bloodied tip pointing toward his wrist.

“You fucking bastard—”

Joseph swung the shovel again, aiming for the gunman’s head. The contact was clean and precise, the metal of the shovel slammed against his skull. The shovel-head reverberated from the impact, sending vibrations through the handle.

The noise of metal impacting skull exploded into the night, echoing through the darkness.

Patrick Rose’s face shut down, his screams ceased, as did the look of horror. He spun to the floor with a blank look of indifference, landing like a puppet on the muddy lawn. Lee dropped the shovel and breathlessly watched the injured maniac, whose barely conscious body continued to breathe—a wheezing whistle layered on each breath. Ahead of him, Zala was sitting on the ground with her knees pulled up to her chest. She gazed upon her beaten admirer and sobbed silently, tears of loss, relief, and fear dripping down reddened skin.

Rummaging through Patrick’s pockets, Lee found the keys to the removal van. He gripped them tightly, paused to glance at Zala—she wasn’t even looking his way, her eyes fixed on the black middle distance. He ran, skipping through the darkness as fast as he could. He could only see a few feet in front of him but he continued on at full pace, using his memory as a guide as his feet crossed over the muddy lawn and hopped onto the edge of the decking before dropping to the concrete path that ran down the side of the house.

He found the parked van. In his hand, he held a set of seven keys, all but one—a long thin and pointed key—looked exactly alike and he had no idea which one fit the lock.

With his entire body shaking from an intense adrenaline rush, he glanced from the van to his house, the keys trembling in his hand. He didn’t know how to drive, but he did know how to use a phone.

Keeping the keys gripped tightly, the ribbed metal imprinting on his flesh, he bolted across the street. His breath spat out of his tired lungs in angry bursts. A welcome but short-lived sense of relief warmed him as he pushed his way into his house.

He tripped over the slumped body of the Lechnens’ accomplice and flew through the air, crashing into the staircase. His right foot was the first to make contact, hitting one of the lower stairs moments before the rest of his body. It twisted in the crevice deep in the angle of the stair, and before he could pull it free or shift it away, the rest of his body crashed upon it.

His lungs screamed a mixture of obscenities and moans, his face an image of torture. With the entire weight of his body upon it, his ankle snapped like a twig, popping out of place before breaking in two.

He managed to bounce his body away from the stairs before his shins and knees suffered the same fate. Using his damaged ankle and outstretched arms, he sprung from the stairs just as quickly as he had fallen upon them. He rolled backward, past the stairs and over the dead man.

Screaming, he lifted his foot and observed the carnage. Looking at the devastation made the pain worse. His foot dangled off the end of his leg, every attempt to activate a nerve and move the appendage failed. It lulled from side to side like a slab of rubber.

A broken bone tried to force itself outward, a mound of skin protruded just above his ankle, but the bone hadn’t penetrated. Gasping soft screams, he used the dead man in front of him to haul himself to his feet, immediately shifting his weight to his left foot.

The dangling foot dragged along the floor as he hopped to the living room, using the wall for support. He reached for the phone, almost diving on it when he spotted it. With fingers trembling at subsonic speeds, he tried to dial 999, hitting the correct sequence of numbers after six messy attempts.

“Police!” he screamed as soon as an operator answered. A heavy buzzing rang in his ears and the world around him spun madly.

Breathing heavily into the mouthpiece, he waited until he heard the operator. “There’s a mad bastard trying to fucking kill me!” he screamed, pausing to swallow a large lump of dry saliva.

“Please calm down sir—”

The voice at the other end of the phone was nothing more than hazy static to his ears.

“I need help,” he begged. “There are two people dead. Two more injured … maybe three.” He felt a sickness rise up inside of him, he held it back. “He’s a fucking psycho! He killed my wife, he killed his own wife, and now he’s trying to kill me. Hurry up.” He gave the operator his address and threw the phone across the room.

Skipping across the room, gritting his teeth to suppress the stabbing pain in his broken foot, he scooped up the set of car keys, which he had dropped on the stairs and then scuttled back into the night. He still didn’t feel safe and he wanted to get as far away as possible.