We got out of the car and met in the deep shadows next to the building. He cinched my hood to cover more of my face and tucked my hair inside. Then without saying a word, he wrapped an arm around my back and ushered me around the corner.
He hurried down the sidewalk past multiple rooms, stopping at the door labeled “10.” The door instantly opened, and Jed steered me inside, a man I didn’t recognize pushing the door closed behind us. I shoved off the hood, but Jed left his cap on.
Dermot stood next to the bed, wearing jeans, a pale blue T-shirt, and a serious expression.
“What do you have?” Jed barked without preamble.
If Dermot was offended, it wasn’t obvious. He pointed to the wall on the other side of the TV. “What do you make of this?”
The wall was covered in newspaper clippings related to Pearce Manchester’s disappearance and the reward offered. On the dresser was a note in Kate’s handwriting.
NK,
A big sister’s job is to take care of her little sister. He’ll never fuck you again.
I sucked in a breath of horror, and Jed wrapped an arm around my back, holding me close.
“Is she talkin’ about you?” I whispered, looking up at Jed.
“Forgive the overreach,” Dermot said, “but I presumed NK was Neely Kate and Kate must be Kate Simmons.”
Jed gave a curt nod.
“I’m not sure what the clippin’s are about, but word has it there’s a Manchester dead in a trunk of a car over at the Holiday Inn.”
Jed’s fingers dug into my hip. “What you found here stays between you and your man over there and us. Got it?”
Dermot held up his hands in surrender. “I want no part of this crazy-town shit. I was only standing guard over it until you got here. But you haven’t seen the best part,” he said, his face tense. “It proves Kate’s serious about the second sentence of her note. Look in the drawer. It was open when we got here, but Nicholson over there freaked out and shut it.”
What the hell was in that drawer?
Jed pulled out a latex glove from his front jeans pocket and tugged it on as he approached the dresser and opened the drawer. He stared at it for a few seconds before he looked up at Dermot with an expressionless face. “Are those what I think they are?”
Dermot gave a sharp nod. “Now you see why I called you.”
“What did she leave?” I asked as I inched forward to peer into the drawer, though I had a sneaking suspicion I already knew what I’d find.
Sure enough, nestled in a white box with bloody gauze were two fleshy spheres slightly smaller than golf balls.
“Since I got dragged into this mess,” Dermot said with his hands propped on his hips, “I’ve gotta ask. Do you happen to know the unlucky bastard who previously owned those testicles?”
“They could be calf balls,” Nicholson said in a hopeful tone by the door.
Dermot scoffed. “I’ve seen plenty of calf testicles and human testicles to know the difference. Those are human. Adult. He was castrated, and it wasn’t a clean job. There’s scrotal skin underneath.”
I wasn’t surprised that Dermot had examined it so closely. I knew he’d been a nurse practitioner, but I wasn’t sure how often he’d come into contact with male testicles to know the difference, and I wasn’t about to ask.
“So, amateur job?” Jed asked as though he was asking what time Dermot planned to eat breakfast.
“Definitely. That scrotal skin looked like it had been hacked off with a butter knife. Literally.”
Nicholson ran to the bathroom and the sounds of retching soon followed. Apparently Dermot hadn’t shared that part with his guy before we arrived.
Dermot shot a disgusted look over his shoulder. “Whoever did this wanted to make sure it hurt.”
Jed cringed, the first sign he was affected by the fact that Kate had hacked off some man’s testicles, only I knew exactly who they belonged to.
“So…” Dermot prodded, turning to me. “I take it you know the owner?”
I opened my mouth to answer, still unsure what to say when Jed said, “No one from around here.”
“No loved one, I hope,” Dermot said. “Because blood loss would be a real concern. Unless she cauterized it.” Dermot shuddered. “Okay then, I’ll leave you to it.” Then he glanced over his shoulder again. “I’ll leave Nicholson to help if you want… since he left his own DNA in the toilet.”
Jed shook his head. “No. I’ve got it covered. Happen to know anything about who checked out the room and how long they had it for?”
“If it’s Adkins, he didn’t check in usin’ his name and he must have an accomplice. We thought he’d used an alias, but the guy who checked in had Kansas plates. The owner checked them himself. Also the guy didn’t match Adkins’ description. Not big enough, but like I said, could be an accomplice. They have it until Sunday morning.”
“So we’ve got a bit of time,” Jed said, then looked up. “The name used—was it Branson Desoto?”
“That would be the one,” Dermot said. “So you do know the poor bastard?”
Jed’s eyes hardened. “Branson Desoto deserves every ounce of pain Kate gave him and more. I take great satisfaction knowing he’ll never rape another woman again.”
Dermot’s gaze drifted to me, and I could see the curiosity in his eyes, yet he was wise enough to keep silent. Jed was likely to punch him if he dared to ask if I had been one of those rape victims.
Nicholson emerged from the bathroom, looking a lot paler than when he’d gone in.
Dermot rolled his eyes. “Let’s go.”
“How’d you get in?” Jed called out to him while studying the clippings.
“Key’s on the dresser. Bill’ll keep it on the down low if you hand him enough cash.” Then Dermot walked out, leaving me and Jed in a motel room with Branson’s testicles.
Chapter 25
“We have to call Joe.”
Jed shook his head. “No. Involving Joe is what got us even deeper into this mess. He’s bound to the law. I can operate a lot more efficiently outside of it.”
“There’s a reason the laws exist, Jed,” I said, getting irritated.
He gave me a hard look. “And those same laws and their bias are why you’re in this situation in the first place. Why didn’t you go to the police after you killed Pearce Manchester?”
“You know darn good and well why I didn’t! Because I didn’t kill him in self-defense!”
“You really think you could have gotten out of that room alive?” he asked in a deadly calm, expressionless voice. “He had his back turned, restin’ up for his next round. Was he facing the bedroom door?”
The horror of that night sprang up, sucking the breath out of me.
“Was he facing the door?” Jed demanded, fire in his eyes.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“How the hell were you gonna get around him to get out?” He sounded pissed.
“I… when he went to the bathroom.”
“Did he look like he was about to go to the bathroom?”
“No.” I started to cry.
He moved closer and grabbed my arms, bending at the knees to hold my gaze. “He would have killed you, Neely Kate. Even on the off chance you made it out the bedroom door, he would have hunted you down and beaten you even worse.” His expression softened. “I’m not telling you this to make you second-guess yourself. I’m tellin’ you that you did exactly what you should have. Only one person was getting out of that room alive, you or him. You had to kill him for survival. But your instinct to hide it was the right impulse. He was a rich oil man from Dallas. You were a stripper from Ardmore. You would have gotten an underpaid, overworked public defender, while his family would have provided all the resources the DA needed to send you to prison for life, if for no other reason but to clear his reputation. You had to hide it. Was that workin’ with the law?”
I shook my head, my cheeks wet with tears.
“No, it wasn’t. The law and justice are not the same thing.” He lifted a hand and wiped the tears from my cheek. “Say the word, and we’re gone.”
I blinked. “You mean gone gone?”
“You’ve suffered more than a person has a right to, Neely Kate, and as the man who loves you more than life itself, it’s killin’ me to see you keep hurtin’. So say the word, and we’ll go. New names. New place—hell, new country if you want. I hear Costa Rica’s pretty nice. I’ll make sure you’ll never get hurt again.”