Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can't Put Down. Литагент HarperCollins USD

think I know her, sorry.”

      In less than a heartbeat, my trusty little friend was pressed up against his temple.

      “Should I describe her to you, Daniel? Should I remind you of the last time you saw her?” I had straightened up and now had him backed up against his front fender.

      He was silent, trying frantically, I believe, to find a way out of this, a way to disarm me. He wanted to grab for the gun, I could see that in his eyes, but he wasn’t sure of my strength or my reflexes, so he, like a wolf, was gauging my movements, biding his time when he could move in for the kill. He opened his mouth to speak, thinking to distract me.

      “Don’t say a word I don’t ask you to say,” I hissed, jamming the gun into the flesh on the side of his face. “I’m going to ask you a question, and you are going to answer it. No bullshit, understand? One question, one answer, or I will shoot you now, right now.”

      Sweat beaded on his forehead, and I was certain he understood.

      “The name of the others who were with you when Jessie Fielding was raped.”

      “I don’t know…”

      “You weren’t listening, Daniel. I will repeat this only one more time. I ask a question, you give me an answer, or I do you right now.” I was beginning to sweat a bit myself. I wanted this over with. “One last chance, Daniel. Who was with you when Jessie was raped?”

      “Some of the guys, I didn’t know.”

      “Then some of them, you did. Give me a name.” I began counting backward from ten.

      When I got to six, he said, “Antonio. Antonio Jackson.”

      “Is he from around here?”

      Sweating profusely now, he nodded. “He’s my cousin.”

      “Where can I find him?”

      “He lives over on Chester Avenue.”

      “Thank you, Daniel.” I smiled, and for a moment, he seemed to relax.

      Then I pulled the trigger.

      I watched his body jerk, then slide sideways onto the ground. Then, satisfied, I walked into the shadows and through the alley that took me, eventually, to my car parked two blocks away.

      I heard the sirens as I started my engine. A few minutes later, I pulled to the side of the road to allow the speeding patrol car to pass me.

      That night, I slept straight through until morning for the first time since the night that changed everything.

      

      “One down, Jessie,” I whispered in her ear the next night. “Daniel Montoya. One down…”

      I left her sitting in her wheelchair, her eyes still trained on something beyond the window that no one else could see.

      There’d been no change in her expression, but I know she’d heard and understood exactly what I said.

      

      Ten days later, in the parking lot of yet another bar, Antonio Jackson and I came face-to-face. It had been remarkably easy to get his attention. Anytime a tall, well-built blonde beckoned, men like Jackson lost all caution. Even after what had happened to his cousin Daniel, Antonio apparently never considered the danger once he saw me perched on the hood of his car, my long bare legs dangling off to one side.

      “One name,” I told him. “Just give me one name.”

      He’d hemmed and hawed as I pressed the barrel of the gun to his throat. He stalled and he pleaded and he cried, but in the end, he gave me the one thing I wanted from him.

      “Eddie Taylor.”

      “Thank you, Antonio.” I pulled the trigger, and he dropped like a stone.

      “Antonio Jackson,” I told Jessie the next evening. “Two down.”

      

      It took me almost three weeks to find Eddie Taylor because he’d been in the county jail for possession and had only been back on the streets for less than forty-eight hours when we finally met. Like an avenging angel, I stepped out from the alley as he walked in. I knew I had the right guy. I’d spent every one of those twenty days staring at his picture on my computer.

      “One name,” I’d said, emboldened by my previous success. “That’s all I want from you, Eddie. Just give me the name of one of the other guys.”

      He’d swallowed hard and tears streamed down his face.

      “Awwwwww,” I mocked him. “Scared, Eddie? Did Jessie cry when she realized what you were going to do to her? Did she cry when you raped her?”

      “Listen, let me…”

      “One name, Eddie.” When he didn’t respond, I once again started counting backward from ten. I’d found that to be universally understood.

      “Kelvin Anderson.”

      “Thank you, Eddie.” I shot him through the heart.

      

      “Three down,” I told Jessie the next night. “Eddie Taylor…”

      

      Obviously, the police were not oblivious to the fact that several young men from the same general neighborhood had been taken out by the same shooter—hello, same gun, which thank God wasn’t registered anywhere, I’d been careful in that regard even while I may have seemed careless in others—but they didn’t seem overly interested in investigating too deeply. After all, at one time or another, they’d arrested Daniel, Antonio and Eddie. I began to think of myself as performing a public service when I realized that the rap sheets of the three of them would have reached halfway to Pittsburgh. In my own way, I was proud of myself. I was taking the steps necessary to ensure that no one would ever go through what Jessie’d endured. As for my conscience, well, after the night that changed everything, do you seriously think my conscience bothered me over ridding the world of a couple of predators?

      A month later I found Kelvin Anderson, and he kindly supplied me with the name of yet another wolf. Frankie Eden and I had a tête-à-tête in the front seat of his car, and later that same night I was able to confirm to Jessie that the count was now four down, and two to go.

      Frankie Eden’s eyes told me he knew who I was, why I was there and where his next stop through the cosmos was going to be. He gave up the last two without flinching, and of all of them, I have to say that Frankie was the only one who died like a man.

      Bernie Gunther and Dominic Large weren’t as easy to track down, but in the end, although it took several months, I’d eliminated every one of them.

      

      After I’d taken out the last of the six—that would have been Bernie—I went back to my apartment and took a long, hot shower. I slept straight through until one the following afternoon, which barely gave me enough time to do what I knew I had to do before evening came. After I’d completed my errands, I took another shower and blew out my hair so that it hung in long soft waves over my shoulders and down my back. I hadn’t realized it had gotten so long. I’d been so focused on the task I’d set for myself that I’d barely looked at my reflection in the mirror anymore. I was surprised to see how gaunt I looked, how pale and thin I’d become, which had, I suppose, prompted all those questions at work I’d been brushing off.

      “How are you? Are you feeling all right?”

      “Have you been ill?”

      Yes, I’ve been ill, I wanted to say. Sick to death of myself, I wanted to say.

      “No, I’m fine. Really.” I’d smile and make an effort to put a little spring back into my step.

      But soon—probably by this time tomorrow, I thought—everyone will know the nature of my malady.

      I typed up the letter I’d composed, sealed