Russell Andrews - Aphrodite

"What kind of things?"

"You know what the good things are," he said. "You don't need me to tell you."

"You mean stuff like how much my mom loves me and all of that?"

"That's exactly what I mean."

"So you don't think I should worry?" the girl asked. "No, Kenny," Justin said. "I don't think you should worry one bit. Why don't you leave that part to me."

Kendall looked at him for a long time. Then she grinned and said, "Okay, Jay. I believe you. I won't be scared anymore and I won't worry, okay?"

"Okay," he said as his mother and father came out of the den and walked up to them.

"She was a pleasure," Lizbeth said, touching Kendall on the small of her back. "I'm going to miss her. We both are."

Jonathan Westwood nodded his agreement.

"I'm sure she's going to miss you, too," Deena said.

"Lizbeth said I can come back any time I want, Mom. I bet you could too, if you wanted to."

"You both can," Lizbeth said, smiling. "You're both welcome."

"Can you stay for a few days?" Jonathan Westwood asked.

"No," Justin told him. "There are some loose ends that need taking care of. We've got to get moving."

"Will we see you soon?"

"I hope so," Justin said. "I hope so too," his father told him.

Deena turned to both of Justin's parents. "Thank you for taking care of my daughter," she said.

Lizbeth reached over and, to Justin's astonishment, took his hand and squeezed it. "Thank you for bringing our son back home," she answered.

Gordon and Wendell Touay were all packed.

The plan was simple. Nothing remotely fancy. They were going to drive to East End Harbor. They were going to wait until Justin Westwood and Deena Harper were together and they were going to kill them. If possible, they would hurt them first. Hurt them badly. But that would be a luxury. All they really cared about was putting an end to their lives. Putting this whole unpleasant situation behind them. The bonus, they hoped, would be the little girl, Kendall. Her they'd let live for a while. A little while, anyway.

They went out through the small workout room, into the garage. They had no luggage; they weren't planning on staying overnight. When this was all done they had decided they were going to put their luggage to good use. They were going to take a long vacation. Maybe down to the Islands. Spend a few weeks on the beach, soaking in the sun, drinking margaritas. Looking for some new and different kinds of fun.

"I've been meaning to ask you," Gordon said as he opened the car door.

"What?"

"Did you drink my Diet Coke?"

"What? No."

"Well, somebody did."

"Gordon," Wendell said, "I don't drink Diet Cokes. I have never in my life had one of your Diet Cokes."

"I'm just saying, I had one in the fridge this morning and now it's gone."

"Maybe you drank it and forgot."

Gordon shook his head. "I didn't drink it."

Wendell looked at his watch. "Can we discuss this while we're on the road?"

Gordon was certain Wendell was lying-who the hell else would have been in their house, been in their refrigerator-but he sucked back his annoyance, nodded at his younger brother, opened the door to the driver's side of the car, and stepped in. Wendell got in the passenger's seat, reached into the glove compartment, and pulled out the automatic garage-door opener. He pointed and clicked and the door began to slide up and open.

"Oh, for God's sake," Gordon said as he put the key in the ignition. "Look."

Wendell turned his head. On the floor of the driver's side, by the gas pedal, was a hand grenade. Wendell had a collection he'd brought back years ago from the Gulf. Gordon reached down and picked it up, handed it to his brother.

"For God's sake," Gordon said again, then snapped, "How the hell can you leave this thing in the car? Have you lost your mind?"

"I didn't leave that in the car," Wendell said quietly.

"Well, who else do we know who has toys like this?"

"I'm not saying it's not mine. It is. I have two of them left. I'm just saying I didn't leave it here. And I didn't drink your Diet Coke, either." Then they both fell silent.

The silence was broken when their cell phone rang. The twins looked at each other. As far as they knew, Alfred Newberg was the only one who had that particular number. And he'd made it clear that he would not be calling anymore.

"Hello?" Gordon said tentatively into the receiver.

"I got your number from Newberg," a man's voice said.

"Who is this?"

"Also your address."

"What the hell do you want?" Gordon asked.

"I just want to tell you two things," the voice went on.

"Fuck off," Gordon said. When the man didn't say anything in response, Gordon put a little bit of sneer into his next words. He was getting angry. Whoever this guy was, he was going to suffer. "Okay, here's your big break. What do you want to tell us, asshole?"

"First, thanks for the Diet Coke."

Before the man could continue, Gordon and Wendell both heard the noise at the same time: a rolling noise, like a bowling ball slithering down a lane. The noise ended when whatever the object was came to a stop, bumping up against something. The rear right tire, it sounded like.

"You want to know the second thing?" the voice asked. "'Cause I'd really like you to hear it."

Gordon swiveled around, saw a man standing outside their garage. The guy looked familiar. He looked like-

"Shit," Wendell said. And when Gordon turned to face him, the younger twin said, "The other grenade."

"Bye-bye," the voice on the phone said. "That's the second thing." They both reached desperately for the door handles, Gordon to his left, Wendell to his right. Wendell got his fingers wrapped around the metal handle. Gordon didn't even get that far.

By the time the fire trucks arrived, Justin Westwood was over a mile away, driving back north, heading out of New Jersey on the two-and-a-half-hour drive toward East End Harbor.

When he reached the sign on the side of the highway that welcomed him to Long Island, he realized he was whistling and had been whistling for quite some time.

FBI Assistant Director Leonard Rollins thought he was having a bad dream. In this dream, he was suffocating. He couldn't breathe. It felt so real, as if something was stuffed down his throat, cutting off his air supply. At some point, the pain in his throat deepened, and that was when he realized he was awake. This was not a dream. He was in his queen-size bed in his room in the not-very-swank East End Motel, naked under one sheet. His eyes were open and above him he could see Justin Westwood. Westwood was holding a gun. The barrel of the gun was jammed into Rollins's mouth. He could feel it pressing against the back of his throat and he could see Westwood's finger on the trigger.

"I'm here to give you a message," Westwood said. "And I want you to tell your boss exactly the way you hear it from me." Justin tossed that morning's Times on the bed. It landed on Rollins's chest. Justin eased his finger off the trigger, then slid the barrel of the gun out of Rollins's mouth. He motioned so the agent knew it was okay to move, to sit up.

Justin flicked on the bedside lamp and Rollins squinted at the sudden brightness. He waited a moment to focus his eyes, reached for the newspaper, and angled it so he could read the front-page story Justin wanted him to see. The story told about the discovery of the bodies of Douglas Kransten and Louise Marshall. The bodies were found in a room in their remote estate in the English countryside. One gun was found in the room. British police had ruled it a suicide pact. They determined that Kransten had shot his wife of over thirty years, turned the gun on himself, and pulled the trigger. Although there was no suicide note, the Justice Department had already issued a statement saying that Kransten and Marshall had been investigated for the past several months for illegal financial manipulations of their company, KranMar. The transgressions were of Enronlike proportions. Chase Welles, the head of the FDA, said that Kransten had been falsifying medical-research reports on many of KranMar's products that had recently been released on an unsuspecting public. According to the Times, the company was about to declare bankruptcy and the couple faced, in addition to public disgrace, charges that ranged from fraud to murder.