He hoped it would be a painful way to die.
There was no longer a wellspring of tears or a firestorm of rage. The surge of feeling that had enveloped Nathan James the last few weeks like a disastrous hurricane had now ebbed and dissipated, leaving only a dull numbness, a grey blanket of cold, emotional isolation. It was a good feeling to have when you wanted to exact revenge.
He leaned against the iron lamppost and stared off toward a distant past, his brown eyes glazed over. There were other ways to kill a man: some quicker, some more private, some less violent, some guaranteed to leave a scar on the assholes of this town forever. He had considered most of these methods, but in the end, only one option remained.
There was no reason for anyone to suspect him; the police, the neighbors, the old work acquaintances all grieved for him for other reasons. No one asked him why he hadn't already left his house or the town, but he could read the silent queries on their faces. It had been three weeks since Nora had killed herself. Since then, the buzzing of condolences and the pitiful attempts at commiseration from those who knew him had droned on, like a swarm of pestilent tsetse flies draining life away in slow motion. They didn't help. Instead, they brought him back to that fateful day again and again. He had grown tired of analyzing the reasons why she shot herself, tired of reliving the moment he walked through the front door of their Golden Avenue house and found a pool of blood on the living room floor, chunks of flesh stuck to the wall.
He shuddered at the thought, at the revolting smell of spent urine and death he still couldn't get out of the house. The image of his wife of seven years, half her face missing, never dulled with time. It was still as sharp and clear as that day, her emaciated form curled in a fetal position, a crimson puddle of blood spread out under her like a sick blossom.
Sure, she deserved to die after what she did, but not like that, and not in his living room. The note he picked out of the pool of blood explained only one thing, the rest just a heap of hateful words jotted down in a shaky script.
Nathan swallowed back a large lump in his throat and returned his gaze to the present. Across the street, a woman sat on an oak bench, busy with a notebook or sketchbook on her lap. He couldn't see her features. The orange glow of evening was turning more and more indigo, and a gentle wind nipped at his open collar. Despite the down jacket and heavy pants, he could never—would never—enjoy the cold. He had lived in this old mountain town most of his life but still dreaded the winter. As fall was a reminder of the frozen months ahead, he'd begun to dread those months as well. He was ironically content that he would never have to see snow again, and the night's attempt to chill his bones would be nature's last assault on him.
In a few hours, he would be headed south.
He turned his attention to the building behind him. A few people stood off to the side of one of the doors clutching cigarettes and wishes, their pallid faces taut with expectation. He'd always found Bennett Avenue to be a useful place to disappear when he wanted to think. If not working at one of the casinos, the locals rarely mingled with the tourists and outsiders. There was anonymity on the street. The town may have found its way back from the brink of economic disaster, but it wasn't because of local money, and it was becoming more and more obvious that locals weren't welcome at the slots.
The sixteen casinos in Cripple Creek were all converted century-old storefronts, saloons and burlesque houses. Their neon names reflected Western themes, although some of them were odd: Jimmy Nolan's, Bronco Billy's, Gold Rush, Brass Ass, Spanish Mustang. It was the last he now stood in front of, and the place most connected to his dead wife.
Nora had always hated gambling. She often told stories of what it did to her father, to her mother, to her family growing up. Even though gaming wasn't sanctioned by the state of Colorado until 1991, Cripple Creek had never shed its raucous past. A poker game or a hidden slot machine was only a sly wink at a bartender away. Someone in town owned a roulette table. Craps was a back alley sport. Nora's family was always on the brink of disaster.
When they'd married, Nathan had promised to stay away from the underground games, but the arrival of state-sanctioned gambling made it more and more difficult. After Nathan was laid off—fired, really—from the Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Mine, the casinos in town offered a temporary respite from unemployment, even if it was only half of what he made in the mines. Ever since he'd taken a job at the Brass Ass, though—first as a dealer then as a pit boss—his wife had refused to be civil. She ranted about the money coming in to pay the house note and utility bills, to buy the groceries and fix the furniture. It was nothing more than blood wages from the Devil himself, she'd said. In reality, though, it was the amount of money coming in that raised her hackles; it just wasn't enough.
He sighed. She'd never respected the effort he put into maintaining a household. Her distance from him grew as the years passed and he moved from casino job to casino job. Despite her pleas to move and find "meaningful" employment, Nathan knew he was a miner first and held out hope he'd get his chance to get back into the mines. In the meantime, a job in a casino would have to do. It was this refusal to bend to Nora's will that further distanced the two, and she ended up finding consolation in another, a man that represented the very thing she said she hated.
Hypocrite.
The door swung open on rusty hinges, and a jolly couple half Nathan's age walked out smiling—an emotion out of place in this part of town. The woman wore a black suede coat with a fur-lined hood bouncing behind her. Her thin face, high cheekbones and green eyes were accented by unnaturally red shoulder-length hair pulled into a crude ponytail. She reeked of alcohol.
The man with her stopped about five feet from Nathan and lit a cigarette, puffing out the first two hits through his nose like a dragon. He was shorter than Nathan and sported a slight paunch that stretched the shirt under his open denim jacket. Unkempt hair stuck out from a black watch cap worn too high on his head to warm his ears. "You want to go over to the other side and see what they have?"
The woman seemed to consider it and shoved her hands in her pockets. "Maybe we can get something to eat, first."
For a moment it looked as if the man had been slapped in the face. His lips snarled. "Really? You want to eat? We're on a roll, baby."
She stepped away from him and lit a cigarette of her own, her jolly attitude now lost. "And we'll be on a roll after we eat. Come on. I'm starving."
With a sigh of strained agreement, the man nodded. They walked past Nathan, leaving a trail of menthol-flavored smoke behind.
They're on a roll, alright, Nathan mused as he fingered something in pocket. They won't die tonight.
Nathan watched a man too obese to move without straining, plop down a bucket of coins at a cashier's cage about five yards away. The weathered employee behind the counter managed a weak smile, took the bucket and dumped it into a counting machine. Coins shifted through a single slot, ticking off dollars one at a time. Finally, the machine stopped its agitated quake and displayed the fat man's winnings: $103. Nathan wondered how much he had given to the Spanish Mustang just to get that much money. Two hundred? Five hundred? A thousand? Did he really think he'd won money? With a severe huff, the fat man turned away, his beady black eyes darting about for an open machine.
Nathan stood in an alcove near the cashier's cage that hid the entrance to one of the bathrooms on this floor. He knew from his walkthroughs that this particular recess was partially hidden from the myriad of cameras that dotted the ornate, wood-paneled ceiling like a fungal disease. These were not Las Vegas casinos; they weren't built for prying eyes. Load-bearing columns and sharp corners allowed some protection, and the bankroll of this particular casino was only large enough to maintain a small platoon of security forces, not a full battalion.
Glancing around one more time without trying to draw attention to himself, he slipped a small cylindrical package wrapped in butcher paper from his coat pocket and dropped it into a waste basket. Thankfully, a poor janitorial staff had left enough crumpled paper and empty wax cups to mask the sound of the heavy package.
Without pause, he walked into the rows of slot machines and pretended to look interested. Double Diamonds, Triple Sevens, Wild Cherries, Haywire—the names of the machines on both sides of him appeared brighter than usual. In the pocket of his twill pants, heavy coins jingled in unison with his steps. He knew he would have to wait for his intended target. In the meantime, he would entertain himself with a slot game or two—far enough away to escape the inevitable chaos he intended.
Nathan stopped in front of a Triple Sevens machine and glanced back toward the trash can. He could still see it. Two machines away on his right was the door. As a former blast hole driller for the mines, he knew the explosive radius of his bomb and had calculated the distance he needed to remain at to be safe. He fingered a tiny device in his pocket and sat down at the machine. Twenty minutes, he thought.
He couldn't simply sit and wait. He reached into a pocket and withdrew an Eisenhower silver dollar. It was Nora's, a gift from Nathan on their sixth wedding anniversary. She didn't like to collect anything—considered such hobbies foolhardy and the prime contributor to clutter—but he bought it for her anyway. Without a lot of money, it was the best he could think of; she loved money, after all. Even though the average silver dollar was really only copper and nickel, there were still collectables that contained silver.
He stared at the coin in his hand, more a reminder of a failed life than anything connected with his wife. It was a 1972 Type 2 dollar, graded M63 by a numismatic in Colorado Springs and apparently worth $132. He had taken the coin out of its case in disgust before he left his house. Nora had stored the dollar in a drawer in the kitchen, a drawer full of crap she considered clutter: anniversary cards, old cigarette lighters, a haphazard collection of screws and tacks. Nathan had protested at first, but she allayed his concern by telling him the drawer was like her personal safe. He noticed the slight cringe on her face when he asked why she couldn't put the coin on a shelf in the living room.
On the reverse, the Apollo 11 mission insignia with its bald eagle landing on the moon in front of a tiny Earth shone bright, illuminated by the lights of the machine in front of him. Nora had asked what "Type 2" meant when he gave it to her. He frowned at her obvious attempt at feigning interest in her gift.
"The types describe the imprint on the back of the coin," he explained. "You can tell by the clarity of the islands."
She looked close. "There are islands?"
"Yes, three." He pointed to the coin.
She squinted her eyes for a moment and looked up. "I didn't know the moon had islands."
It was one of many moments of idiocy Nathan had recalled in the last few weeks. Even though he remained married to her for seven years, there were numerous things about her he couldn't stand.
Seven years, he thought. I want those years back.
He raised the coin up to the machine, hovered at the coin slot and eked out a sadistic smile. The dollar slid in with a satisfying clink of metal on metal. It dropped into the coin tray with an empty clatter, spun twice on its side and fell over.
Damn it.
He picked the coin up and tried again. There was a familiar clink at the slot, an internal whiney of metal inside the machine and a faint thump as the coin dropped back into the coin tray.
After two more tries and more internal curses, Nathan picked the dollar up and put it back in his pocket. He knew slot machines were programmed to receive coins of a certain weight and size. The Eisenhower dollar, while the right size and partially developed for the casino industry, was not the same weight as the general circulation coins. Because it contained real silver, it was almost 2 grams heavier. It was worth a try, though.
Nathan sighed and looked at his watch: only two minutes had passed. The target was likely starting his rounds. An older waitress walked past, wearing a blue cocktail dress far too tight for most women. Nathan drank in her pear-shaped figure then focused on her aging face, puffy red eyes and peppered hair pulled back in a French braid that needed to be redone. The woman had distorted breasts that poked out from the top of the cocktail dress, revealing a faded tattoo of what might have been a butterfly. The poor thing looked like it had suffocated.
The waitress glanced at Nathan and rested a wrinkled hand on her serving tray. "Cocktails?" she whined without stopping her slow gait down the aisle.
Nathan ordered a whiskey and Coke and turned back to his machine, mentally washing his eyes out with soap. If he was going to wait another eighteen minutes, he might as well have a drink.
Rudy Gasparro was a stickler for routine. Although Nathan and Rudy were friends in high school, for the last eighteen years or so their acquaintance had thinned. Perhaps it was Nathan's employment at a competing casino, or perhaps it was Rudy's rise through the rank and file of management at the Spanish Mustang that drove a wedge between them. Rudy was all about money, even when they were kids. Whatever the primary cause, the two had recently been on less-than-friendly terms for the last year. It was only after Nathan's discovery of Nora's body and the note left in the blood that comprehension finally dawned.
He counted on Rudy's need for routine and prayed it was unchanged. For the last three days, Nathan had watched Rudy's movements, tracked him through the casino and gauged his reaction to unforeseen events. He knew what he ate, how fast he drove through the streets of Cripple Creek and when he came home. He knew what he wore, when he liked to go to the bathroom and how many Snickers bars the man ate for lunch. Most importantly, he knew when he made his final rounds of the casino floor he managed.
It was this piece of information that proved vital and allowed Nathan to finally formulate a plan.
Like a ravening cancer, vengeance had turned an ordinary Nathan into an obsessive maniac, unable to think of anything else. He had pondered how best to get revenge for well over a week, and finally settled on a most simple plan: a bomb. It wouldn't be right for Nathan to simply place explosives under the wheel of Rudy's car. No, he had to blow the piece of shit up in public, make it look like the bomb wasn't just for Rudy. To kill him alone would surely spread his name throughout the town, and Nathan couldn't stand the thought of that bastard getting any more attention than he already had. If he was killed in the casino, though, he would be just another statistic—one of many; another tragic footnote in the history of central Colorado.
How do you kill a man with a small bomb, ensure others would die as well, get to watch the whole thing and not be injured yourself? This question was hard to answer. There were certain explosive devices Nathan knew all too well, but none of them were readily available. Working in the mines, he had rigged hundreds of explosions strictly controlled within federal and state regulations. However, the longer he worked the mines, the more knowledgeable and interested Nathan became in the miracle of volatile technology. Incendiary devices containing thermite—a mixture of aluminum and ferric oxide—were easy to make, and they burned like a son-of-a-bitch. Those caught within the first ten feet of a small explosive would be killed or maimed by the force of the blast. If he packed the bomb with nails and scrap metal, more would die. The ensuing fire would engulf whatever combustible material was nearby. The old timbers of the Spanish Mustang, despite renovations to the building in the early nineties, would ignite and burn within seconds.
Those not directly affected by the detonation would run for the exits. It was that chaos which made Nathan's plan too easy. The aisles of slot machines running from the front doors to the back were narrow. Cheap metal stools were almost always in someone's way, and fat people like the one Nathan had watched a few minutes ago at the cashier's cage seemed to congregate in the worst possible places, like hippos gathering at a waterhole. Old ladies and their crippled husbands bounced back and forth, hogging two or three machines at a time. The younger crowd—comprised of those in their early twenties or late thirties—was either already intoxicated or fast becoming too buzzed to think straight. Most helpful at all was the way the slot machines were laid out on the casino floor: in a T-shape, with those machines closest to the door running parallel to the front wall, while others were situated perpendicularly. Their placement created a maze specifically designed to keep people in, to tempt patrons with their flashing lights and damnable bells. The design, the people, the very essence of the casino was perfect for generating a panic that would trap at least half of them inside as the fires created from the explosion raged like an inferno through a forest of straw.
Nathan glanced down at his watch: thirteen more minutes. He realized he'd been sitting at the Triple Sevens machine for too long without playing. An aware security officer in the video monitoring room would surely suspect him of something. In the casino world, there was no allowance for loitering; you either played a game or you walked around looking for another game to play. Idly sitting on a stool staring at a wall was going to raise questions. This was a business of money and time, and if you weren't giving your money or your time to the casino, you were an enemy.
The aging waitress returned with Nathan's drink and handed it to him. He removed a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and slid it into the bill feeder. He didn't really want to play, but he needed to do something. In thirteen more minutes, he would be running out the door, comforted by the sound of screaming and the odiferous and tangy scent of burning timbers and flesh which would wrap him in a blanket of warm vengeance.
Seven - Bar - Triple Seven.
With images of Rudy's body erupting into bloody chunks of flesh and bone, Nathan hardly noticed the position of the slot wheels as he unconsciously hit the spin button on the machine. In his left hand, his drink was nearly empty. He resisted the urge to look at the trash can, but every now and again he caught himself. At this point, acting any more suspicious would not be wise.
His right hand pushed the spin button again. The wheels flew by quickly, finally stopping with a weak clunk on three double bars. The slot machine chimed off his winnings: thirty dollars. Without paying attention, he had already quadrupled his original twenty. At some point, he knew he'd have to cash out with enough time to convert his winnings to cold, hard cash. It was a long journey to Nogales, Arizona, and he could really use the money.
Another spin. Bar - Cherry - Nothing.
A wrinkled woman who must have been storing fat for the upcoming winter plopped down at the machine on his left. What is it with fat people, tonight? The woman blocked his view of the alcove, and without thinking about the shiftiness of it, Nathan leaned back on his stool to see if he still had a good view. With a flutter of tricep flab, the woman dropped three tokens into her machine and raised a bottle of Budweiser to her candy-apple red lips. She took a long draw on the bottle and then smacked the bottom of it against the spin button. A phlegmatic grunt escaped her mouth as the wheels spun.
Nathan tried to ignore her. He looked at his watch, relieved that now only eight minutes remained, just enough time to cash out, collect his winnings and head for the door. If he timed it right, he'd have a good minute left before Rudy walked by on his final round of the casino floor.
First, however, one more spin for good luck. The wheels spun again then stopped in order.
Triple Seven - Triple Seven - Triple Seven.
The machine chimed and the candle above blinked on and off with blinding fierceness, letting all within the general vicinity know that Nathan James was a winner. With the speed of a snail on crack, the winning meter began ticking off his godsend, one dollar at a time. Nathan's stomach felt like it had dropped to the floor in unison with his jaw. He glanced up at the payout: $2000. In a flash, he added it to how much he had pulled out of his meager savings account. A wry smile crept across his lips. He would have enough for a run to the border and probably a good week's stay down south. The sum was more than he had made in wages last month.
The crony next to Nathan leaned over and looked at his machine. Her lips parted into a snarl, revealing just a hint of yellow and grey teeth. She huffed once, took another draw on her bottle of beer and smacked the spin button on her machine with obvious disgust. She mumbled something under her breath about the machine being hers then stood and walked away. Joy was not a shared emotion.
Nathan looked around for a slot attendant. Despite the sudden windfall, he knew in his gut he only had eight—no, seven—minutes to collect his cash before Rudy walked by the trash can. His pulse raced as adrenaline coursed throughout his veins and arteries. His left leg started to bounce up and down.
His eyes darted from his watch to the still-counting win meter. Where was that attendant? They were always there when you didn't need them to be, adding flesh to already packed aisles. If a machine's hopper ran out of coins, you could be sure one of them would be there in less than a minute to refill it; an idle slot damaged profits.
As if in response to his wandering gaze, a short man, brown hair sticking out in unnatural ways, appeared at Nathan's side. He wore a tacky green vest over a dirty white shirt, a malformed mustang head embroidered on the front. The man's blood-shot eyes were half closed under a single bushy black eyebrow. He looked at a clipboard in his hand and absently raised a walkie-talkie to his mouth.
"Subject secure," he said. "I'm in place."
Nathan couldn't help but notice the pronounced lisp in the slot attendant's voice. The radio in his hand squawked back some incomprehensible garble that ended with a nasty hiss.
The attendant looked at Nathan, grunted and then turned his eyes toward the slot machine. "Congratulations," he mumbled with what appeared to be condemnation or something.
"Thanks," Nathan replied. He glanced at the trash can, his watch and then to the machine.
The attendant scribbled something down on his clipboard. "What are you going to spend your big winnings on?"
"Um . . ." Nathan stuttered. His thoughts were suddenly a hodgepodge of excitement and anticipation that threatened to dowse his hunger for revenge. A bead of sweat materialized on his forehead.
"Really," the man replied. He took a large key ring off a chain that dangled from his waist and fumbled with it. "Me? I'd spend it on a lawyer to get my crazy wife out of the house. Maybe buy some beer." He grunted a few times, either at his own thoughts or the keys. Nathan couldn't be sure.
"Ah," the attendant said finally, holding up a single key and opening the slot machine's door. With another scribble on a piece of a paper, he placed a card inside the window of the machine, flipped some switch and slammed it shut with a metal thud. He looked at Nathan. "Follow me."
The pit of Nathan's stomach, already somewhere near his knees, fell further to the floor. "Excuse me?" he said, not moving from his stool.
The slot attendant blinked. "Well, if you want to get paid, I would advise you to follow me." He shook his head slightly and tapped his clipboard. "Rules."
Without considering the oddity of it all, Nathan glanced again at the trash can and then down to his watch. Five minutes. His face exposed an emotion borne of fear and victory, like a sick mutation you were hard-pressed not to stare at.
"Something wrong?"
Nathan swallowed back a lump in his throat. Coincidence, he knew all too well, was a wellspring of both fortune and disaster. It was life's game of craps and whether or not God played dice with the universe, you were still subjected to the cast. Of all the bones rolled in his life, this was one time he wished they'd come up snake eyes. Maybe coincidence was buried in the mire of probability and all of the events in the past few years had bridged the connection between the seemingly disconnected events of now. Maybe chance was unkind.
Had Nathan not started working in the casinos—a course of action that would not have been necessary had he not been fired from the mines—perhaps Nora wouldn't have taken a keen interest in Rudy. Maybe Rudy would have been just another pawn of the Devil in the gaming industry and Nora's pig-headed attitude toward gambling would not have been whittled down, eventually leading her astray. In fact, had Nathan been more conscious of mining safety and not fooled around with explosives, he wouldn't have been fired. Recklessness, it seemed, was imprinted in his DNA, and his early years were full of teenage volatility. Had he been injured during that time, he would have perhaps been more careful with his job as a blast hole driller. For that matter, had he not been a child living around the mines watching others work, he might have even been something else—a doctor, a lawyer, a banker.
Nathan suddenly found himself blaming this unfair coincidence in his present life on his mother and father. His mind swirled with rage, despair, hate, uncertainty. He was coming apart, his once-steel nerves shattered. Was this even a good idea anymore? Couldn't he just take the money and run, forget about Nora, about Rudy, about his now threatened chance at vengeance?
Of course something was wrong: Nathan James unexpectedly had doubts. He needed another drink, maybe two. He sighed and stood.
The slot attendant looked at him with a tilt of the head. "Normally people look happy when they win," he said matter-of-factly. "You feel alright?"
Nathan managed a weak smile. "Butterflies and gas, that's all."
Without another word, the attendant turned and started to walk to the back of the casino, toward the cashier's cage and the alcove where Nathan had planted the bomb. More beads of sweat formed until Nathan felt sure someone would notice. He wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his coat.
A woman in her seventies, maybe older, stepped up to an empty cashier's window and tapped a gold pen on the counter. Pearl reading glasses rested on the tip of her nose, just above a nasal cannula pumping oxygen into her slim frame. Her diaphanous skin was stretched tight over high cheekbones tinted pink with blush. She let her beady black eyes settle on Nathan and smiled. "Nathan," she said. "Looks like you're a big winner."
Nathan stood at the counter, unsure of himself or why he decided the money was really necessary. Of all the people in the casino to pay him out, did it really have to be his chatty neighbor? There was anonymity on the street, but inside, he felt suddenly surrounded by the denizens of Cripple Creek. "Hello, Edith," he gulped.
Edith's smile didn't falter as she accepted a form from the slot attendant. "Thank you," she said. The man grunted a mumbled reply and turned away. Edith looked down at the form while robotically pulling out two papers of her own. She looked up at Nathan again. "Nice winnings."
"Thanks."
With shaking hands, Edith began to fill out one of the forms.
"What's that for?" Nathan asked, glancing at his watch. Three minutes. Rudy should be rounding the corner on his right any second now, nodding to each employee as he made his way to the back exit far to the left. "Is this really necessary?"
Edith stopped writing and set a hardened gaze on Nathan. He suddenly felt sick; a tinge of bile burned the back of his throat. "If you want to get paid," she said absently. Her smile was gone. In its place, a wrinkled frown. She sighed, as if she'd been asked this question one too many times. "For all payments more than $1,200, Colorado laws require us to check your identity and see if you're delinquent in child support payments. In addition, the IRS would like to know you won money. It makes Uncle Sam a little richer."
Nathan nodded and wiped his forehead again. "I see."
"You feel alright, Nathan?" She stared for a moment longer and finally turned her gaze back to the forms. She scribbled a few things down and then paused without looking back up. "I'm sorry about Nora."
Sadness mixed with anger. He felt tired, beaten. For three weeks he'd had to deal with pitiful condolence, less-than-heartfelt sympathy. With each question, each statement, nails were pounded into his own coffin. Yes, Nora was dead. Yes, he was sorry. But not sorry she died or sorry she took her life. He was sorry he had to find out about Rudy from a bloody note left in his living room. In a matter of days, he'd tumbled through the five stages of grief—first denial, then anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. It was the anger he'd decided he was best suited to embrace, and he had accepted it with fervor.
Over the past week, he had tried to channel his hate. He'd busied himself with the task at hand, drowned himself in a sea of vengeance and washed away any semblance of feeling for Nora. For a perceived eternity, there was only a cold loathing, but that now was being chipped away by an incomprehensible series of events on the one night he needed to remain focused.
Nathan glanced to his right. The target of his anger—or the only target he could direct it at—strode down an aisle of slot machines. He stopped at one machine a slot attendant had opened. A slim woman in a green vest, seemingly uninterested in whatever her task was, busied herself as much as possible as Rudy stood next to her. He said something, smiled his fake white smile and patted her on the butt. The woman seemed to blush, then fluster. She nodded, said something in return and watched as Rudy stepped away. As soon as Rudy's back was to her, she stuck her middle finger out at him and returned to her work.
Apparently, Rudy's death would be welcomed by more than one person.
Nathan looked him over, trying to figure out what Nora had seen in him. He was short and round, maybe a hair above five feet and nearly as thick. Slick black hair was combed over a balding pate that framed a ferret-like head. Two beady green eyes, buried under waxed eyebrows, darted back and forth. He walked like a pompous ass, confident strides on impossibly small legs and feet. His metallic silver suit glistened under the casino lights making him look remarkably like a robotic keg . . . with a ferret's head. He was out of place among the t-shirt and jeans crowd that frequented the Spanish Mustang. With each step and nod at an employee, it became apparent that he relished power and position.
What a waste of flesh.
Rudy's fake smile faded slightly as his eyes landed on Nathan. With an exaggerated huff, he reapplied his smile and stepped up to the cashier's cage window, putting himself between the trash can and Nathan. Edith quickly looked up from the forms and nodded at Rudy. Just as quickly, she looked back down.
"Nathan," Rudy said, his voice thick with feigned excitement. "Looks like you're a big winner." His teeth parted in a sick smile, revealing snow white—undoubtedly fake—teeth.
Nathan felt rage burn, his lungs on fire. "Yes," he said. There was an uncomfortable pause and he turned away from Rudy and back to the forms Edith was still filling out. How long did it take to fill out a stupid form? He glanced down at his watch and realized he didn't need to do that any longer. Rudy was as timely as ever; it was Nathan who was struggling with time tonight.
Behind Rudy, the bomb waited undisturbed. Nathan reached into his pocket and felt for the trigger. If he could hold Rudy's attention long enough, he could take his money, turn down the aisle behind him and trigger the explosive with just the right amount of distance between him and the blast. The image of Rudy's body coming apart drifted across his mind.
Nathan turned back to Rudy. He desperately wanted to say something, to let it be known by all within earshot that Rudy was about to get what he deserved. He had told himself that confronting his prey wouldn't be worth it, however. It would be best to just kill him and let the town wonder as it, too, burned.
Rudy's plastered smile faded. There was a grimness about him that belied his otherwise phony appearance. He looked around quickly, almost ashamedly. "I'm really sorry about Nora," he said in a hoarse whisper. "She was a . . . unique and wonderful woman."
At this, the fire in Nathan's lungs stormed forward, an unholy inferno of repugnance and hate that enveloped his whole body. It suddenly dawned on him that Rudy wasn't aware he knew about their affair; the bastard didn't know about Nora's confession in the bloodied note. He wanted to lash out, wanted to mar that hideous face, but all he could do was burn inside his own Hell and pray Edith would hurry up.
His hand involuntarily tightened around the trigger in his pocket. He should forget about the money, forget about his safety. He should just get it over with now.
The events of the next few moments seemed to happen in one quick second. Behind Rudy, an elderly man of Hispanic decent dressed in a blue jumpsuit pushed a rolling dumpster into view. He coughed into a handkerchief, shoved it into his pocket, and lifted the lid from the trash can. Nathan felt bile rise in his stomach.
At almost the same instant, Edith pushed the two forms toward Nathan and tapped her pen on the counter.
"Can you fill out the highlighted areas?" she asked. Her voice was ethereal, lost among the distant cacophony of casino bells.
His ears buzzed. A weight, like a suffocating pillow, pressed down around his head. The sourness in his stomach stung the back of his throat. He felt naked, exposed, like every eye was now on him.
The janitor lifted the bag out of the trash can and dropped it into his portable dumpster. With a snap of the wrists, he opened an empty bag, lined the can, replaced the lid and pushed away. In seconds, he was out of sight, Nathan's bomb on its way to a back alley along with all his hopes of revenge.
"You don't look so good," Rudy said. "Are you alright?"
Nathan tore his eyes from the janitor and looked at Rudy. He opened his mouth to say something but felt sick. He turned to Edith, still tapping her pen on the counter. She looked at him with more than the concern of someone waiting for him to fill out the forms. Sweat had beaded across his forehead like the condensation on the side of a cold beer in the middle of summer. It dripped over his eyebrows and stung his eyes.
With his fingers still around the trigger in his pocket, Nathan turned back to Rudy and threw up.
The cold air outside felt fresh and wonderful, especially after the fetid, moldy smell and stifling heat of the casino floor. Nathan stood across the street from the Spanish Mustang, trying to disembark from the emotional roller coaster that had been taking him for a ride over the past few minutes. He smacked his lips, still tasting the remnant bile stuck to his teeth. The image of Rudy's face—wide-eyed and full of shock as vomit dripped down the front of that ugly silver suit—was interminably etched in Nathan's head. He let a sly smile creep across his face before wiping it away with the brush of a hand.
So the bomb was gone, the cheap trigger in his pocket now worthless. Sure, he could dive through the dumpster in the alley and retrieve his well-designed weapon, try again tomorrow; but the moment had passed, the plan had failed. After all the effort put into setting up the perfect revenge, the rage that had fueled Nathan James for the past few weeks had just been expelled in one quick spasm of his stomach. He was empty inside, the shell of a man. In his pocket, he had enough money to make the trip to Nogales and cross the border, but even that seemed like a foolhardy plan.
Nathan turned and walked down the sidewalk of Bennett Avenue past the rows of false-fronted buildings with their colonial swags of pressed metal under ornate cornices, their randomness of design. He looked around, hands stuffed into the pockets of his twill coat. He didn't have any direction in mind, just a vague sense that he should walk. Maybe the walk would clear his head and allow him some semblance of peace, a peace he hadn't known since . . . since . . . .
Nathan paused for a moment on the sidewalk. He'd never found peace. All of his life had been mired in reckless abandon, one event after another. He had never given himself time to simply sit down and let it all go. From a childhood spent wandering the streets through his teenage years of causing mayhem to neighbors, there was no respite from activity. In his twenties, he'd worked his fingers to the bone for a company that didn't like his exploratory attitude toward explosives or his initiative. Even in marriage, there was no peace. He'd spent years trying to make Nora happy, hoping she would appreciate what he did for them, for her. When did he ever find the time to exist as Nathan James and examine his well-worn life? When did he make the time?
A disheveled man in a tattered green checkered flannel shirt smelling of cheap whiskey and tangy offal brushed by Nathan. He turned to watch as the figure stumbled up the slight incline of the street. Thomas Tweed. If Cripple Creek had guttersnipes, Tweed would be their king. The man mumbled something under his breath as he pushed up the sidewalk. He perked his head up to the right and mumbled something again. With a grunt, he batted at the air then quickened his pace. Nathan suddenly felt a twinge of sadness for Tweed even though he'd always dismissed him as lazy, drunk, or just insane. How much did he really know of the people in this town?
Nathan walked a bit more and then turned north onto 3rd Street. The street inclined a little more sharply and he soon found himself past the casinos of Bennett Avenue and surrounded by ancient dwellings and odd buildings far removed from the tourist district. Here the sidewalk cracked and buckled, then ended. The street was littered with discarded cigarettes and paper cups. A grease-stained paper bag danced in front of him, tossed by an abrasive but short-lived gust of wind.
Ahead of him, bathed in darkness, the copper spire of Our Lady of the Assumption Church—whoever the "lady" was—stabbed defiantly into the air. The red brick church, capped with a marble Botonnee cross atop the spire, sat near the apex of an impossibly steep hill. Stained glass windows embedded in round-arched frames offset the sharp angles of the roof and contrasted sharply with the concrete steps. Nathan noted the door for the first time; it was light wood, perhaps new pine that seemed loudly out of place inside the older structure. The aluminum gutters on the side of the church were equally out of place with the ancient construction, guiding water off the roof and into a garden of dead fescue, oat grass and mountain muhly.
Nathan had never attended church and often brushed off Nora's attempts at making him go. It wasn't his style, he told her once. He often felt something or someone was watching over him, especially on the tougher days in the mines, but he wasn't religious. He never scoffed at anyone who was; it just wasn't for him. If others wanted to worship God or pray to idols, he was okay with it. Nathan simply wasn't going to follow along.
He stopped at an iron fence that ringed a small cemetery next to the church. In the center, a statue of the Lady of the Assumption stood with her hands in the air, staring at the sky. She was awash in the light of two cheap garden lamps pointed at her. Like so many structures in Cripple Creek, the statue was weather-beaten, chipped in various places, stained with bird shit and what looked like rust. Dead flowers in tiny vases littered the bottom of the statue next to a plaque with the Serenity Prayer engraved into it.
"God grant me the serenity," he whispered as he read, more to himself than any deity. Nathan stared up at the face of the lady, into her white and empty eyes, hoping for some sign that all was well with the world and his life would be vindicated. As he stared, the face seemed to transform into a ferret-like head with a fake smile painted on for good measure. He thought he heard the lady say she was sorry about Nora.
Nathan wiped his eyes and turned away. Was the world mocking his failed attempt to kill Rudy? The anger that had sustained him for the last three weeks now rushed back into the void it had just abandoned. His face flushed, his fingers tightened.
Nothing was right, and it didn't seem he'd ever find peace. Irritated at his life, he turned away.
Just how Nathan ended up outside the wrought iron gate to the Pisgah Cemetery was unclear. He last remembered walking with his head hung low, focused on his rage, the world around him just a fog as his legs followed a course of their own, like a robotic toy, wound up and incapable of turning or being turned. He looked back toward the lights of town; he must have walked five miles without direction, past his house, past people he knew, turned left at the old Imperial Hotel and kept walking.
Now he stood at the entrance to a place he'd only been inside once before—three weeks ago when he buried Nora in a ceremony attended by only a few. Rudy hadn't been there and just as well. Had he shown his ferret face, Nathan would have said something nasty. That nastiness would have been heard by someone, and Nathan wouldn't have been able to take revenge and run south without anyone being the wiser. Yes, it was providence that Rudy stayed clear.
Still, how had he gotten here? He searched his memory; he couldn't recall anything after turning away from the mocking Lady of the Assumption. He'd always had an idea that bits of time were missing, like he weaved in and out of consciousness on an occasional basis. A doctor once explained that he probably suffered some concussive injury once or twice in the mines, and his life would have holes.
"Just don't drink," the doctor had said.
The entrance to the cemetery loomed over his head, the word Pisgah written out in rusted letters at the top of a large iron arch. There were no lights, save the passing of a car on its way out of town. Ahead of him, a gravel path stretched in vermicular patterns, weaving between ancient headstones and carefully manicured spruce trees. The moon had disappeared for the night, the stars masked by thickening cirrus and a few lower clouds. A faint reddish glow bathed the horizon in the direction of the town, but otherwise there was little light.
Nathan thought that best. He didn't know why he stood at the aberrant memorial marking the end of his marriage, but he certainly didn't want to go in. As he'd left Nora's graveside after her emotionally diverse funeral, he'd told himself he would never return. Seven years of nagging and being put down, of being ignored at the worst possible moments . . . only to finalize her disgust with him by screwing Rudy.
Rudy, of all people. The man was a gluttonous blob of foul tissue. He was a waste of flesh, if ever there was one. And how could Nathan not have known? Nora wasn't smart enough to cover her tracks or even hide her feelings. She wore her emotions like they were naked mole rats tied in a bow around her neck. If she was having an affair, certainly Nathan would have known. Wouldn't he?
A brief gust of wind licked his nape, cold and almost wet. His body quaked. He really needed to leave. Cripple Creek had sucked him dry and left him with nothing but painful memories and a sickness he just couldn't understand. His failure at the mines, his failure with Nora, his last failure at the Spanish Mustang—all of it weighed him down.
A voice in Nathan's head whispered: "Just leave."
Headlights from a car rose over the hill to the east, coming from town. Nathan didn't understand why, but he felt the sudden need to step away from the front of the cemetery and out of view. As if in response to his quick movement behind one of the thick spruce trees that stood sentinel next to the entrance, the car slowed its approach and turned onto the gravel parking lot. It paused near the entrance for a moment then pulled up to the fence. The engine went silent with a smooth huff, but the lights remained lit.
Nathan watched as a keg-shaped figure emerged from the driver's side and looked around. It shut the car door silently, as if the noise would wake the neighbors, then stepped toward the gate. It glanced in Nathan's direction and paused.
What the hell is he doing here?
Rudy held a bouquet of what looked like roses in one hand, but from his vantage, Nathan couldn't be sure. Realization struck him like a brick falling without mercy from on high: the asshole was going to visit Nora's grave. He couldn't very well do it during the day, when someone might notice and the tourists were milling about gawking at the ancient headstones. At night, though, under the cover of dark, no one would see. He was still hiding the affair, perhaps afraid of his wife or Nathan finding out. But Nora hated roses . . . didn't she?
Rudy turned toward the gate and unlatched it. Without any further glance right or left, he walked down the gravel path and disappeared into the darkness beyond. Nora's grave was near the back of the cemetery, a simple headstone embedded into the earth near the perimeter fence. Nathan sat motionless for a moment longer, waiting for the crunch of shoes on gravel to grow faint.
He didn't want to go in. His mind battled back and forth between letting it go and getting involved. Anger swelled, his face flushed, the heat of his boiling blood evaporating the cold around him. If he sat still, he could approach Rudy from behind when he came out. A simple choke hold and twist of the neck would do it.
Yes, that would be perfect.
Nathan shook his head. No, that wouldn't be perfect. Someone must have passed him walking down the road to the cemetery. Since he couldn't remember how he even got there, any number of people could be witnesses. Hell, some of them might have even tried to start a conversation, and maybe in that missing period, he might have even said something incriminating.
A fear blossomed out of his anger. Was he being too obvious, wearing his own necklace of naked mole rats for everyone to see? He had certainly been more distant the past few days leading up to now. He rarely spoke to anyone, avoiding conversation like a flailing leper.
Nathan frowned and looked out toward the lights of the town.
Damn it, he thought. He needed to go home, rest and regroup.
The house on Golden Avenue was pink. God, he hated that color. Nathan stood on the narrow street and took it all in. It was Nora's idea to paint the small, vernacular house pink—certainly not his—but he was the one who had to do all the work. The lace trim work was nice; at least he could take pride in that. He'd spent hours on the Greek window trimmings of the old house, doctoring up any worn boards. What shabbiness the previous owners had left behind, Nathan had taken pains to clean up and repair. The scalloped siding on the house, so pink now, was originally gray, and not by any design; it had probably once been white or yellow. A broken window here, a few missing shingles on the high-pitched gables—he had fixed it all.
So why did he have to paint it pink, of all colors?
Built in 1896, the house was one of many that tourists would marvel at if they ever took leave of the casinos on Bennett Avenue. There were many houses like his along Golden Avenue, but unlike the modern suburban landscape, no two houses were alike in design or color. The house itself wasn't huge—there were few houses in Cripple Creek that were—but it was sufficient for him and Nora. He once believed there was even room to raise a little boy.
Nathan let his thoughts pause on the idea of a child. He and Nora had talked about children, but shortly after they married, Nora began to have second thoughts. She wavered at first, but as the years grew longer and the arguments grew fiercer, she was more and more adamant. A child, she said, would just cost money, be another mouth to feed, and she liked her life. Nathan gave up the notion of a child around their sixth year, and it seemed to him that Nora was relieved, a burden taken off her shoulders. Of course she didn't want a child. A child would have complicated her affair with the ferret face.
Brushing aside the brief moment of reflection, he took a step onto the porch. The boards beneath creaked in opposition to his intrusion as he fumbled in his coat pocket for keys. His fingers brushed across the now useless trigger. He let out a well-worn sigh and, finding his key, opened the door.
In grand contrast to the beauty of the outside of the house, the interior was in disarray. The living room was just like he'd left it, just like he'd left it the day before and the day before that. It was piled high with empty sacks of fast food, papers and other detritus of a rather uneventful life. There was the coffee table, fashioned from an old pine cable spool. There was the couch, pea-green with frayed armrests and a red blanket that covered a massive tear in the center cushion. Next to the couch, pushed up against the wall, stood a curio—his father's—heavily acquired patina marking every sharp edge. Its age blended well with the Victorian wallpaper he'd been forced to hang a year ago when Nora decided she needed to "lighten up" her life. To him, the wallpaper looked more like a warped pattern of smashed beetles.
In the center of the room, dark against the wooden floorboards, there was a stain—the stain—blossomed out like a flattened flower. Nathan avoided it as much possible, neither glancing at it nor stepping on it. If he could afford to rip up and replace the boards, he would. Then again, he was more determined than ever that he needed to leave. What did one stain matter?
Within a minute, he settled into the couch with an exaggerated groan, a headache and a bottle of Jim Beam open, headed for his lips. He took a quick drink of the whiskey then set the bottle down on the coffee table, his eyes mere slits buried under puffy lids. If he wasn't so tired from the day's emotional roller coaster, he would take the time to think things through, plot out his next move. He couldn't very well leave town without making Rudy pay for his crime.
He sighed. All things in good time.
He reached for the bottle once more, took another drink then held it in his lap. He'd never been much of a drinker—much to his doctor's relief—but recent events had weakened his resolve. He needed something to dull the pain, something to wash away the memories. To Nathan, the bottle offered liberation—albeit, short-lived. If that meant he'd lose time here and there, he was okay with that.
Lost time meant serenity.
"Why do you put me through Hell?" he asked Nora, aloud. "Why?"
The choir invisible said nothing.
Something woke Nathan. He struggled to open his eyes, unsure of anything. The living room was dark, the bottle of whiskey perched precariously at the edge of the coffee table, half empty. He sat up straighter, wiped his face and looked around.
The last visions of some dream hovered at the periphery of his memory like waves in a choppy sea, appearing then disappearing quickly and without form. He thought he remembered a stick, then a car, then the stump of a tree. Red skies, a dollar coin, more stumps and some sort of scream. None of it made any sense, just a jumble of misfired synapses without structure. Whatever the dream was, it wasn't important.
A faint light from somewhere beyond the kitchen drew his attention. He hadn't turned on any lights when he came home, had he?
Nathan shook his head and stood up. A wave of nausea washed over him, replacing the last of the dream's images with a pale sickness. In the light, the stain on the floor seemed brighter, almost fresh, like Nora's body had just been removed. It spread out toward the wall, oddly luminescent. If he stared a little longer, he thought he'd see it glisten, wet. He turned his eyes away, and—stepping around the stain—walked into the kitchen.
The light came from a single uncovered bulb hanging inside a pantry closet. The door was missing, just as it had been since they bought the house six years ago. The low wattage light cast a bluish glow over dishes, feathered with mold, stacked in the sink and on the counter. A few glasses of unfinished liquid—perhaps once milk or orange juice, but now the same color—were scattered about. A box of Lucky Charms lay open on its side, cereal and dried marshmallows spilling out among rat droppings. Papers and mail littered a cheap, folding card table in the middle of the room. The sweetened scent of decay and rotted fruit hung in the air, not unlike the scent of Thomas Tweed when he'd passed him on Bennett Avenue.
Another smell filtered in through the rot, sweeter but gritty. He looked around, unsure of where it came from, but very sure of what it was: dirt, wet terra firma. The smell tickled his nostrils and brought with it unexpected memories of working underground. He loved the tangy smell of damp earth, even as a boy playing in the backyard. But where did it come from?
Nathan turned around in the kitchen, lifting his nose up slightly. The smell was definitely dirt. He carefully stepped around the table, looked around then stopped.
There was a muddy footprint on the linoleum by the refrigerator, large and speckled with grass. His heart thumped once then raced, thoughts exploding in his mind. Had someone been in his house? He spun his body around the kitchen again, looking for another footprint, another clue. If someone had been in his house, when?
Nathan stood silent for maybe a minute, listening, the only sound the ragged breath coming from his lungs and, in the distance, a siren. The siren quickened his pulse even more, but he knew it was simply an instinctual reaction to the noise; he hadn't been arrested since he was in high school and broke into the old Hotel St. Nicholas back when it was a hospital and he was searching for ghosts. Then again, maybe someone found the bomb?
The bomb. His head spun. The Spanish Mustang should be burning right now and he should be gone, hitchhiking his way to Nogales to find a way across the border without being seen. Why had that stupid janitor decided to empty the trash at that exact moment? Why couldn't he have waited five more minutes?
A rattle of the dishes in the sink startled Nathan. His heart pounded against his sternum. His fingers clenched into tight balls as sweat beaded on his forehead. He looked at the sink. A large, rusted tabby cat sat on its haunches, licking a paw. It stopped once to look at Nathan with piercing blue eyes then returned to minding its fur.
Nathan's hands relaxed. Of all the things to be scared of in the last few days, the cat—stray and unnamed but always welcome in his house—was not one of them.
He looked down again at the footprint; it was too fresh to have been his, wasn't it? He didn't remember coming in the kitchen when he came home. For that matter, why was there only one print and only here in the kitchen? Why not a trail of muddy footprints leading from the door or a window?
Nathan shrugged and grabbed the handle of the fridge to pull it open. Food suddenly sounded good.
A face, not unlike that of a ferret with slick black hair combed over a balding pate, stared back at him from a shelf between a tub of butter and a week-old bag of Taco Bell, its tongue hanging out of blue lips, puffy. It sat atop a plastic dinner plate, ragged pieces of flesh around the neck marking crude and violent cuts. Blood pooled in the plate was made bright red by the light inside the refrigerator.
"What the hell?" Nathan took a step back, mouth open, eyes wide. He bumped against the table. The cat hissed once then leapt off the sink. Nathan turned to run.
A figure stood at the doorway to the kitchen, bathed in shadows.
"Hello, Nathan."
She stood over him with gloved hands, black sweater pulled tight over a lean body. Her hair was covered by a black beanie, but rather than matching trousers, her pants were a dark brown. It was hard to see any real facial features in the dim light of the living room, but Nathan believed the large and crooked nose belonged to Ellie Gasparro, Rudy's apparently not-what-she-seemed wife.
Nathan tried to move but discovered both his hands and feet were bound with some sort of soft fabric. With each twist of his hands, he felt a responding pull on his legs. He was in a fetal position, laid out on the floor of the living room and, to his horror, over the stain Nora had left behind. Hot breath filtered through his nose. With each inhalation, he could smell Tide or Gain or something country-fresh stuffed into his mouth and tied around the back of his head.
"Don't bother struggling, Nathan," Ellie said quietly. "I used silk on your wrists and legs. It's a strong material and so very good at not leaving marks."
Nathan mumbled something in response and tensed. What was going on? Did he lose time again? The image of Rudy's head on a plate in the refrigerator was the last thing he remembered with any clarity. His body shuddered at the grotesque image burned into his mind.
As if in response to his internal queries, Ellie smiled. "It's so convenient that you keep blacking out." She knelt before him. For the first time, Nathan saw a gun in her right hand.
Christ. It was his gun.
"Before I finish what I— I mean, what you started, maybe you'd like to know what happened?"
Nathan stared in disbelief. What was she doing with his gun? For that matter, what was she doing in his house?
"I'd known about Nora and Rudy for a few months. I can't believe you didn't see it yourself. Then again, you were never really bright. Every time Rudy would come home late, I could smell her on his skin. It was like being slapped across the face, day after day after day."
Ellie reached up with her free hand and took off the beanie. Blonde hair, held in a loose bun, fell around her shoulders. If it weren't for the gun in her hand or her dark, almost hollow eyes, she would be beautiful. Nathan found himself wondering, once again, what women saw in Rudy.
"I was going to talk to you about it," Ellie said, "and see if you knew anything. Before I got the chance, though, I found a note."
Nathan blinked. What is she talking about? He mumbled a muffled curse through the gag in his mouth. Damn it. This is so uncomfortable.
"You see, Nathan, Rudy wasn't the most honest person in the world. He liked money. You might remember that from your time in high school." She stopped and smiled, then reached out and wiped her forehead with the beanie. "Anyway, he apparently started to hoard money. Money that wasn't his. Money that belonged to the Spanish Mustang. It wasn't much at first, but that small sum began to grow. Nora showed up in the picture shortly after that sum grew to nearly a million dollars. Apparently your wife—late wife, I should say—liked money, too."
A million dollars? Nathan felt his heart race. The suddenness of the last few minutes felt like an explosive shockwave. His stomach grumbled in response as it twisted.
Ellie stopped smiling and looked around the living room. She paused on the curio in the corner and seemed to ponder it for a moment. Her lips quivered. Finally, she turned back to Nathan. "Did you know Nora didn't even struggle when I tied her up? It was like . . . like she had resolved herself to death. I have to wonder: are you that bad of a husband?"
Nathan stared at Ellie and felt anger boil on the edges of realization. So, this was how Nora had died: at the hands of Rudy's wife. He swallowed back a growing lump in his throat and closed his eyes.
"Apparently, Rudy and Nora were planning to run off with all that money. That's what Nora's note said. I still can't believe she would write down something like that and give it to him." Ellie chuckled. "She had to know I'd find it."
Nathan opened his eyes again. Ellie had stood up. She walked over to a black duffle bag near the kitchen and took out a gallon-sized freezer bag. Light from the pantry reflected off a large and very bloody serrated knife inside. Ellie carefully opened the bag, removed the knife and let it drop on the floor next to Nathan's face. He felt a cold drop of liquid hit his cheek and drip downward.
"That's your bread knife, by the way. I like the weight of the handle. I have to say it cut through Rudy's neck nicely. It was a little hard near the vertebrae, but that's what serrated knives are good for: sawing." She smiled. "Your fingerprints are all over it."
In a surge of fear and anger, Nathan twisted his head back and forth, up and down, struggling to loosen any of the bindings. It was no use; he was trapped.
Ellie replaced the now-empty freezer bag and turned back to Nathan. "So, where was I? Oh, yes. Nora and Rudy were going to run off. Well, I couldn't have that; the money was mine. I gave Rudy the idea of how he could get away with taking it. He wasn't smart enough to figure anything out on his own. Sure, he was good with the management of things, but there wasn't an ounce of creativity in him." She shuddered. "In the end, he repaid my genius by screwing your wife."
At that, Nathan's fear and panic morphed into a sadness he'd never experienced before. It enveloped his body, starting in his chest and radiating outward, through his stomach, up his neck, out to his bound hands and feet. It was an icy blanket, stinging his skin until every nerve seemed to scream out in pain.
Ellie continued. "There was a problem, though, Nathan. Only Nora and Rudy knew where he hid the money. I tried to find clues among Rudy's stuff, but he covered his tracks a little too well. Nora knew, though. That much I'm certain. He would have told her on any one of their little trysts—which, by the way, were almost always here."
Nathan closed his eyes again to counter the tears that clouded his vision. The words that flowed from Ellie's mouth had grown faint. He wished she would just shut up and kill him, get rid of the pain.
Instead, she spoke again. "I didn't get anything from Nora. I spent almost three hours with her, right here, but she wouldn't say anything. I thought it was over. I would never see the money. Putting the gun in her hand and pressing the trigger was like . . . like killing my dreams."
Ellie sighed. She slowly sat down on the floor in front of Nathan, her shoulders slumped. She looked beaten. For a minute, she didn't say a word. Her chest rose and fell.
In the quiet moment—thank God, she had stopped talking—Nathan wriggled his wrists. The silk cloth felt looser. His heart quickened as a glimmer of hope lit up the blackened despair that had covered his life. Maybe her talking was a good idea; it gave him time.
"I really thought it was over," Ellie said finally. "Rudy had won. He would find some other slut to share my money with."
Keep talking, Nathan thought, twisting his wrists more.
"But then I noticed something—something strange. Nathan James was trying to kill my husband."
Nathan felt the bindings loosen. Just a little more.
"And if Nathan James was trying to kill my husband, it must be because Nathan James had found out where the money was hidden. Why else would he want Rudy dead? For screwing his wife? That's just a little over-the-top, don't you think? Nathan James didn't even like his wife."
Nathan stopped struggling and looked at Ellie. She stared back with her dark and hollow eyes, almost penetrating his psyche like she knew how to get inside his head, and she was going to stop at nothing until she arrived. He tried to look away.
"Well, Nathan, I did you a favor. I finished the job you couldn't. Rudy is dead. Your wife is dead. And now there's only one more thing to do."
Ellie stood, the gun in her hand now raised and pointed at Nathan's forehead. He looked up at the barrel and felt his body quake at the same time.
"You know where the money is, don't you, Nathan?"
Of course he didn't know where it was, but if it would buy him a little more time, he would make it up. Nathan nodded. He twisted his wrists again and this time felt the silk binding give and fall to the floor behind his back.
"Tell me," Ellie demanded in a voice that was not harsh, not loud. It was just firm. "Tell me where the money is, and maybe you and I can get out of here together."
A noise from the kitchen drew Ellie's attention. She turned her head in time to see a rust-colored cat walk into the living room. It meowed once then stopped.
Without thinking, Nathan swung a hand around and grabbed the knife dropped by his face. He sliced it through the air, catching Ellie's shin with satisfying purchase. She screamed and toppled forward onto one knee, reaching for her leg. The gun dropped from her hand and clattered onto the floor.
Still bound by his legs, Nathan heaved his torso around and pulled the gun toward him.
Ellie recovered and pulled the knife from her shin. Blood dripped onto the floorboards from both the blade and the large gash in her leg. With an angry hiss, she lunged forward with the blade and struck Nathan on the hip, tearing into his soft skin. Fire lanced through his body, up his side. A red flash crossed his vision as the pain hit his face.
With a cry, Nathan pulled the gun up and, planting it into Ellie's chest, pulled the trigger. An explosive bang ricocheted through the tiny living room as the woman's back burst outward, flesh and blood and bone spraying the ceiling and the walls.
With a wheezing cry, her body collapsed next to Nathan, eyes wide open, tongue hanging out, blood pouring from her chest.
Nathan lay on the floor, covered in blood, his eyes locked on the horrifying face of Ellie Gasparro. He breathed in and out, trying to steady himself from the shock of the moment. His chest rose and fell, rose and fell. The cat—his savior, it seemed—stood in the doorway of the kitchen, licking a paw.
After a few minutes, he heard the sound of a siren, in the distance growing louder. Someone must have heard the scream, heard the gunshot and called the police.
A phrase kept running through his mind as blood continued to pour from Ellie's body: ". . . nearly a million dollars."
Somewhere out there, nearby, was a fortune that now only he knew about. Nora knew where it was hidden, and he felt sure she had left clues behind.
She was like that.
Nathan James let a small smile cross his face.