J. Black - The Survivors Club

Another break.

He got the idea that the video had been patched together from different sources.

Now the camera panned to the sky, the cliff.

Screaming.

Jerky video. Something hurtling down, a figure, landing hard on the bank.

“Pow!” someone yelled.

A woman’s voice.

A smile, a tanned face, upturned nose, dark hair, ribboned with yellow streaks, sunglasses. Just one jerky moment—the expensive lipstick, the broad smile.

Jaimie.

But that wasn’t the best thing on the homemade DVD. The best was something even older. Maybe four or five years ago. Michael younger, Jaimie younger. Taking turns with the camera.

They were all either shit-faced, or drugged. And they were laughing. Hysterical. Michael was on something, that was obvious, and he was sprawled on a bed in what Wade assumed was his ancestral mansion. Lying there like a pasha, in a striped button-down shirt, open and loose on his chest. Pushing on the head of some woman giving him head, looked like a bleached blonde. Jerky movements. Another scene, out by the pool, tottering around drunk, talking into the camera. Waving his finger at whoever was videotaping him.

“We did it, Dad, you fucking son of a bitch!”

Jaimie holding on to his shoulder, laughing. “We survived you, and now you’re moldering away! You couldn’t survive us !” Paroxysms of laughter.

Jaimie pretending to hold a microphone. “How many have you killed, Michael? Just give me an estimate!”

He looked sleepy, a sweet smile on his face. Sprawled on a chaise by the pool. Started counting on his fingers. “One, two, three…?”

Jaimie homing in on him with her fake microphone. “What was your favorite? Who did you like killing most?”

He grinned. “That’s easy. Dear old Dad.”

Thought about it for a second. “Putting Mom out of her misery, that was pretty good, too.”

They both dissolved into laughter. Shared hits off a bottle of champagne. Got celebratory and opened another bottle, which Michael sprayed all over Jaimie. Brayden was there, too, and they took turns teasing her, encouraging her to talk into the camera, but she just folded her arms and hopped back.

There was a lot more of it, but that was enough.

Wade had enough to get his payday.

CHAPTER 51

When Michael’s phone rang (his ringtone was, appropriately, “When the Bullet Hits the Bone”) and he saw Jaimie’s name on the readout again, his first inclination was to ignore her, as he usually did. But he knew it was the rancher guy, and that the rancher guy meant business. He wanted to ignore the call, but he couldn’t.

He’d make it clear. There would be no two million dollars. The rancher guy could kill Jaimie. It didn’t matter to him.

“Guess where I am?” the rancher guy said.

“I don’t give a damn.”

“Oh, but you should. I’m at Jaimie’s.”

“So?”

“Are you familiar with her television and sound system?”

Michael felt his first stirring of unease. He said nothing.

“Really, you should have a talk with your sister. She was dumb enough to leave the DVD she burned of your party out in plain sight. Well, not plain sight exactly, but close enough for horseshoes.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Don’t you want to see the video?”

Michael felt his pulse race. Did Jaimie really just leave it out for anyone to see? Was she that stupid?

The answer was yes. She was that stupid.

“One thing I’ve learned,” the guy said, “in this long life of mine, is that people do what’s easy. When nobody’s looking, when they feel like they can let their guard down, that nobody will know how smart they are, they do dumb things. Like put a DVD right next to the DVD player. Maybe put something on top of it, oh, like a bunch of movies, to hide it, but I can’t tell you how many times people have fucked up on some little turning point like that.”

Michael didn’t reply.

“There’s even writing on the case. ‘TSC.’ That’s what it says on here. Sound familiar?”

“No.”

“This is just a guess, but maybe TSC is short for The Survivors Club. Oh, wait, she mentioned that somewhere along the way. Maybe it was on the drive over. Hard to hear her with that choke chain pulled tight.”

“You know what I think? I think you’re full of shit.”

He was about to thumb the phone off when the guy said, “Nice party you guys had. Let me send it to you. Hold on.”

It came through.

“I’ll wait while you watch a little, okay?”

Michael watched. He couldn’t help himself. It was from about five years ago. They were celebrating another killing. He couldn’t remember which one it was. And looking at himself, so completely out of it, his heart sank. Everything seemed to cave inside of him.

Leaving only terror.

Prison.

And then one day, they’d strap him to a gurney in a little room and give him a lethal injection.

Fear kited up into his throat, but disciplined himself by thinking, I have lawyers . He said, “So what?”

“So what? Hey you got monster ones, my friend. So what . This goes viral. I can transmit it anywhere. I can transmit it to the local gendarmes, I can transmit it to the FBI, it can go all over the world with a touch of a button. So what? You really want to push me?”

Michael’s vocal cords barely got purchase, but he said, “Fuck you.”

“Fuck me? What a terrible thing to say. You just hurt my feelings, friend.”

Michael could barely feel his fingers holding the phone. He could picture the little room at the prison in Florence. There was a window, and people behind the window, and they’d all be peering in at him like kids with their faces to the glass. Like his death was a TV show. But facts were facts. “If I paid you two million dollars, what would stop you from extorting me again and again?”

“Hmmm.” The man paused, then said, “Would you trust my word? I’m a man of my word. You would have to trust me on that.”

Michael said nothing.

“Just a little pressure from my thumb and this goes all over. The first place it goes is to the FBI.”

“It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just some of us joking around about killing our parents. A fantasy.”

Another pause. Then, “There are facts to back it up, bro. Peter Farley. The woman in New Zealand. Santa Cruz County and TPD is already on your trail, bud, they’re already looking at you. You think they won’t act on this evidence? You think it won’t show them where and what to investigate? You’re toast, my friend. Unless you pay me to shut up. And I’ll even throw in Jaimie.”

Michael almost hung up. But he couldn’t. His fingers were slippery with sweat now. He clamped harder on the phone.

“Two million, bro. Worth the price of admission, let me tell you.”

But Michael knew this wouldn’t be the end.

Still, he had to do something. “You come here. Bring it. Bring Jaimie. We’ll talk then.”

“Gonna take you some time to work out the details, friend. Put in a call to your bank. I have a number for an account in Belize for you to wire it to. These days, it should take a couple of minutes tops, once you say the word.”

“It’s after hours, bud. Tell you what. You come here and we’ll talk.”

“I’m not going there.”

“Then we’re done here.” And Michael disconnected.

CHAPTER 52

Tess had finished a late dinner when she got the call—searchers had discovered a camping area above Mowry, on a hiking trail in a remote area. There was a stake in the ground and a chain, and footprints that appeared to match the partials they’d seen down below, where the truck had crashed off the side of the road. It looked as if Jaimie had been kidnapped and held there.