Lawyer Trap

61





DAY TEN–SEPTEMBER 14

WEDNESDAY MORNING


Slightly hung over, Draven crawled out of bed before dawn, being careful to not wake Gretchen. He carried his jeans and T-shirt outside and put them on, then walked over to the barn and took a heaven-sent piss in the dirt. Crickets chirped. Something small rustled in the brush, maybe a mouse or a snake. He zipped up, unlocked the barn and inched his way into the blackness.

He couldn’t remember a darker dark.

Nothing was visible, not even the outline of the tow truck.

He held his arm out until he felt steel, and then followed the cold body of the vehicle around until he reached the door. When he opened it, the dome light came to life and shined on the driver’s dead body.

He grimaced at the sight.

Shit.

The dumb bitch.

Why’d she have to go and screw everything up?

He moved her arm to see how much stiffness had settled into the body since yesterday afternoon—not enough to make a difference. He opened the door as far as it would go and then pulled on her arm until she dropped to the ground with a thud. Then he dragged her out of the barn over to the Nissan, where he muscled her into the trunk. The whole thing took less than three minutes but left him covered in sweat.

He locked the barn and double-checked the lock.

It was important that Gretchen didn’t stumble across the tow truck today while he was gone. He’d come up with a plan to dispose of it later, but right now he had to concentrate on first things first.

He checked on the tattoo woman, chained to the seat frame in the back of the Granada. She was still wonderfully unconscious, thanks to the injection. He moved her into the back seat of the Nissan, re-chained her to the frame and covered her with a blanket. Then he left a note on the kitchen table for Gretchen, telling her he had business but would be back this afternoon.

Finally at ease, he pointed the Nissan toward the cabin.

He arrived at the structure just as dawn broke.

It looked deserted, as it should.

No lights were on.

No cars were parked in front.

Perfect.

Everything was back on track.

He found the stripper—Chase—naked and dead in the bedroom, brutally dead to be precise, the victim of multiple bloody wounds. In addition to all that, a nail had been pounded into her forehead.

The hammer sat on the dresser, next to a box of 3″ galvanized nails.

“Goddamn sicko,” he muttered.

For a split second, he had half a mind to hunt the guy down and do the same thing to him, to see how he liked it. But the feeling passed after he wrapped the woman in a bed sheet and made a pot of coffee. Out in the garage, he confirmed that the satellite DVD recorder—the one that the clients never knew about—had done its job. He watched for a few seconds, just long enough to tell that it had worked properly, and then popped the DVD out. He put it in a plastic case, carried it into the cabin, and set it on the kitchen counter where he wouldn’t forget it.

Okay.

Good.

He filled the cup back up with piping hot coffee and then sipped it on the front steps. The sun was already taking the chill out of the air and washing the mountains with a yellow hue.

It’d be a nice day.

Autumn in Colorado.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

As bad as yesterday had been, things still worked out pretty good in the end. After the stupid tow-truck driver forced him to kill her, Draven drove the rig straight to the farmhouse. Luckily, Gretchen wasn’t home. He figured out how to unhook the Granada, and stashed the truck in the barn, long before Gretchen showed up.

She cooked hotdogs and chili and bounced up and down on his lap until he promised to take her to a bar.

They ended up at a dive with cheap beer and a crappy jukebox but a nice, homey feel.

Then they drove back home with guts full of alcohol and managed to screw like crazy before passing out.

That was last night. Now, today, he had work to do. He put the tow-truck driver in a wheelbarrow and muscled her into the mountains as far as he could, ending up a good five or six hundred yards from the cabin. Then he buried her a foot down, fighting rocks the whole way.

In a perfect world, she’d be deeper.

The effort was too much.

The ground was almost all stone with hardly any dirt.

In any event, a foot ought to be good enough to keep the stench in and the animals out, especially after he piled a ton of rocks on top.

Then he went back to the cabin and ate a sandwich and half a box of cookies, thinking about how he should kill the tattoo woman.

He heard her moan out in the Nissan.

Perfect.

She was waking up.

Just in time to die.

He unchained her and carried her into the bedroom, where he tied her on her back with her arms over her head. Then he gagged her, straddled her chest and slapped her face until she was fully awake.

The hammer kept drawing his attention.

He pulled up a vision of driving a nail into her forehead.

On the one hand, death would be quicker than she deserved for all the pain she’d put him through. On the other hand, he wouldn’t have to fuss around with her all day.

She must have read something in his eyes, judging by the way she pulled so frantically at the ropes.

“Yeah, it’s that time,” he said.

She tried to plead with him, through the gag, but everything came out scrambled.

He leaned over far enough to get the hammer and a couple of nails.

He dangled them in front of her face.

“I can’t lie to you,” he said. “This is going to hurt.”