John Miller - Smoke and Mirrors

“You never tried to patch it up after Memphis?”

“The ice never thawed and I went to Ole Miss. Once Leigh decides something, that’s it in stone. My father’s reputation here gave me an initial edge with voters because he brought about half the population of Tunica County into the world. All I need to stay in office is to have his patients vote for me.” Brad smiled and patted his dog. “I expect the people around here vote for him, not me. I’m trying to change that.”

They talked on, about their friends in common, their law enforcement experiences, farming, and county politics. Winter told Brad about how he’d met Faith Ann and explained how she had become like a daughter to him and Sean. After that, he excused himself and called Sean’s cell phone.

“Hey, cowboy,” Sean answered. “Where you staying?”

“Call me Deputy Massey…again. I’m staying with my new boss, the sheriff. Where are you guys?”

“Have you leveled with him about Styer?”

“I haven’t decided how much to tell him. I think I’ll wait for the DNA comparison.”

“Tell him, Winter. Don’t let him be vulnerable because he doesn’t know what he’s dealing with.”

“Maybe it’s time.”

“Yeah. Just in case, he should know. Faith Ann wants to visit Graceland, so I thought we’d stay a couple of days.”

“I’d rather y’all would go on home. I’d feel…”

“I thought we’d eat at that rib place you told me about.”

“Rendezvous. Yeah. It’s close to the Peabody.”

“Any objections to our staying over? He won’t bother us. Besides, he’s there, right?”

“You’re right, Sean. But I’ll be worried and if I’m worried…”

“Okay. We’ll leave tomorrow morning at eight,” Sean said. She was the strongest woman Winter had ever known, but she also knew when to give in. It was one of the things he loved most about her.

“Styer won’t go after you guys at home.”

Winter spoke briefly and wistfully to Rush, Faith Ann, and Olivia before he hung up and returned to the den.

“I think it’s time you knew who I think we’re probably dealing with,” Winter said quietly. “How much do you know about me, what I’ve been involved with in the past?”

Brad fed Ruger what was left of his burger as he spoke. “I’ve heard some things. The Tampa courtroom shootings. I know there was some kind of big incident outside New Orleans a few years back with Sam Manelli’s gang, and another one there a little over two years ago. And I know there was an incident in South Carolina involving the trial of Colonel Bryce, some rogue military intelligence officers, and the kidnapping of a judge’s daughter and her child.”

Winter nodded and said, “Brad, what I am going to tell you has to remain between the two of us. If you tell anybody I told you what I’m going to tell you, I’ll deny it.”

“I’m listening.”

“Styer is a professional assassin from the Eastern Bloc who used to trade in seemingly impossible-to-kill targets, first for the KGB’s elite Special Situations Unit, and after the wall came down, for a private murder-for-hire organization. When I sent your toothpick to the lab, I also sent them Styer’s DNA. I got it from a scented toothpick he left in a rental car in New Orleans. I’m having that sample compared to your toothpick, and if it matches, we’re going from bad to worse real fast. I’ve gotten what little I know about this guy from people who know things I don’t. They talked to me because they hoped I might somehow lead them to him.”

Brad crossed his legs at the ankles.

“Paulus Styer was born in East Germany and sent to the Soviet Union where he was groomed to be a weapon of selective destruction. He became a world-class professional assassin-a human chameleon who vanished two years ago after failing to kill me.”

“You were his target?”

“He was told I was his target. The CIA used a hit on me to get Styer in the field so they could take him out when he made his move on me. They underestimated Styer and sent a single professional to kill him, but Styer found out the hit was a ploy and escaped. Faith Ann’s uncle, my friend Hank Trammel, is a cripple, and his wife, Millie, was killed. Faith Ann saw Styer run them over with an SUV merely to manipulate me into a death game. He has a compulsion to show his victims, just before he kills them, how amazingly talented he is. I guess since he can’t show the world his genius, he plays to an audience of two-himself and his target.”

“He tried to kill you and failed?”

“He easily could have, but he decided not to. Look, nothing he does is without purpose. Maybe he killed Sherry Adams for another reason, but he definitely used that murder as bait to get me here. It’s all a game with him. He isn’t part of the same reality normal people share.”

“Seems really farfetched,” Brad said. “He knew I’d go right to you?”

“He is a grand master of manipulation.”

“Can you take him?”

“Only if the playing field is slanted in my favor. Styer is way out of my class. In a toe-to-toe gunfight, I’d have an even chance. But outside that scenario, my odds crash.”

“Could you…I don’t know…contact the CIA for help getting him?”

Winter sat back and shook his head. “Asking the part of the CIA I’m talking about for help is the last thing we want to do. Be like asking a pack of starving wolves to guard your henhouse.”

After being kept blindfolded, gagged, and tied up on the mattress in the back of her abductor’s van for what seemed like hours, Cynthia Gardner found her self fully awake and completely alone.

The guy had to be some kind of serial killer or rapist or something.

Although she couldn’t see anything, she knew that he had taken her back to the equipment shed. When he jerked the tarp off her body, she smelled the diesel and the cool earth floor of the barn.

“We’re going to be here for a while. I’ll let you eat and use the portable toilet, but remember my warning. You’ll be spending the night here. You have any problem with that?”

Cynthia shook her head. As soon as her mother figured out she wasn’t at her grandmother’s she would be FTFT-freaking the fuck totally. But if he had let her live this long, she hoped the bastard was going to ransom her, and her mother would pay, and maybe he’d let her go home. She couldn’t believe Jack would get her kidnapped, but he was certainly a man who liked money. It worried her, though, that the man hadn’t bothered to hide his face from her. That could mean he was going to kill her, but it might also mean he was from out of the area and figured she couldn’t identify him because they wouldn’t catch him. Jack was smart and he probably didn’t figure she’d know he was involved. He would probably think she was that dumb, the smug bastard.

She wondered if the man was serious about killing her if she tried to escape. Probably not, but doing what he said made sense. No sense pushing him.

He untied her hands and feet and led her to the toilet. She reached up to free the gag and he slapped her so hard she almost fell. Stunned, tears blurred her vision.

“Nothing you have to say is of any interest to me,” he told her sternly. “Do your business.”

Nodding, she turned with her back to the seat and looked pointedly at him, waiting for him to close the door, but he just held it open and stared back at her. Her bladder was bursting, so she bit her lip, looked at the floor, and slowly undid her jeans.

After she finished, he led her back to the van and retied her. She felt a sharp pain in the back of her arm and realized, when he pulled back, that he was holding a syringe. She protested in a low growl, but the sensation of floating in space killed the sound. She closed her eyes. Oblivion seemed like a good idea.