He felt something odd.
The air stirred.
He glanced toward the kitchen again.
Had he left the broom closet door open? Shit, no. When was the last time he’d reached for a broom or a mop or—
He felt the barrel of a pistol press against the back of his head—a deadly ring of cold steel through his thinning hair. What?
He froze.
His cigarette fell onto the carpet.
He nearly lost control of his bladder.
“Don’t move” was the command.
Click.
The sound of a pistol being cocked.
All of the spit dried in Margrove’s mouth. He nearly peed his pants.
“Wh-what do you wa—？”
“Shut up!”
He did.
He tried to think over the panic rising like a rocket inside him. Who the hell was this? Why was he—or she?—here? What the fuck was the gun all about?
“I-I don’t have any money.”
“I said shut the fuck up.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit! Margrove tried to think, to come up with some idea of what to do. He’d been in tight places before. Tons of them. But he’d never in all of his fifty-nine years had the barrel of a gun pressed to the back of his head. Think, Margrove, think. Talk your way out of this! There has to be a way. Maybe this is just a robbery. Someone, a vagrant who had seen the lights of the trailer through the near-blizzard conditions outside—
Then why the gun? So close.
Stay calm. You can handle this.
Frantic, his heart thundering, he eyed the bat. Too far away. And if he moved? Oh, shit!
He had to get out. And fast. Get away.
Zzzzt!
What the fuck was that? The swishing noise sounded like a belt being pulled quickly from loops or—
From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of steel. Sharp metal that reflected and distorted the television screen.
Jesus Christ, the guy had a knife? He’d unsheathed a fucking knife? While he already had a gun pressed hard against Merritt’s skull? Why the hell would—
Oh, fuck!
The blade slashed down.
Fast.
From his ear, one side to the other before he could think, could move.
Thin steel sliced quickly through skin and muscle and cartilage.
Blood spurted, thick and red.
Stunned, Margrove dropped to his knees. Sputtering and gasping, gurgling and coughing, he knew he was drowning in his own blood. He wobbled for a second; then his head landed on the floor. He registered for just a second that he was dying. Murdered. His eyes were wide as he tried to see this cruel son of a bitch who had done this.
But his gaze fixed on the TV.
For the last fleeting seconds of Merritt V. Margrove’s life, as he bled out onto the old shag carpet, feeling little pain and even less regret, he watched the final credits of the black and white movie as they rolled slowly over the screen.
CHAPTER 8
Head pounding, Kara eased her way downstairs to let the dog out into the still-dark yard, then hit the button on the single-cup coffeemaker on the kitchen counter and ignored the grit in her eyes and the headache starting to bloom at the base of her skull.
Margrove hadn’t called back, though, to be fair, it wasn’t even seven. Most of the world just waking up. Yawning, she glanced through the dining area to the front window, where, peeking through the blinds, she noticed the streetlights casting a vaporous glow, snow now gently falling from a black sky fighting the coming dawn.
She thought she hadn’t slept a wink the rest of the night, but somehow the hours had passed, so she had to have dozed. In the cupboard near the sink, she found a bottle of ibuprofen and shook out the last remaining tablet.
The coffee machine sputtered and steamed, spitting out a shot of espresso to which she added a healthy stream of Baileys.
Just to take the edge off. A bit of “the hair of the dog,” as Daddy had once told her years before when she had no idea what he was talking about.
As she popped the pill and washed it down with a hot swallow of the doctored coffee, the TV was blasting, news of Jonas’s release still the top story.
So where was he?
Why hadn’t he tried to contact her?
More importantly, why was she torturing herself when her head already felt twice its normal size? She found the remote and snapped the sunny-looking reporter right off the screen. “Better,” she said, hoping her headache would shrivel as she sipped from an oversize cup.
She opened the door and Rhapsody bolted into the kitchen, waiting eagerly, tail slapping the side of the counter as Kara added dry food to her empty bowl.
Already showered and dressed, with minimal makeup and more than one drop of Visine in her eyes, she decided she’d waited long enough. She needed to see Jonas, and the only way she knew how was to talk to the attorney who lived across the river.