Brian Freeman - Spilled Blood

‘Hit who, man?’

‘Hannah Hawk.’

Lenny shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. You got one of the windows.’

‘I heard her screaming,’ Kirk said, ‘but that doesn’t mean anything.’

‘I thought you were just trying to scare her,’ Margie said. ‘Not hit her.’

‘Hell, what’s the point of that?’ Kirk put his gun against the side of Margie’s head. The cold metal went in her ear. ‘You don’t shoot a gun unless you want to hit something.’

‘Stop that!’ she told him.

‘I thought you wanted to be a porno star.’

‘Don’t,’ Margie begged.

Kirk hooked his arm around her throat and shoved the gun until it was almost breaking skin. As he tightened his grip, Margie twitched in panic. Her legs kicked spastically.

‘Bang,’ he whispered as he pulled the trigger.

Click.

‘It’s empty, stupid,’ he chuckled.

Maggie squirmed in his arms and hyperventilated. ‘You bastard!’

‘Don’t be a cry-baby.’

‘You scared the shit out of me!’

‘Oh, quit bitching. You got off easy. My gun wasn’t loaded. Ashlynn got her brains blown out by that St. Croix pussy.’

‘Why do you care about her?’

‘Ashlynn was a Barron girl. In Barron, we stick together.’

‘I heard she dumped you,’ Margie snickered.

‘Shut the fuck up. You don’t know anything.’

‘She was just dating you to piss off her father. Every rich girl likes to fuck her daddy’s nightmare. Although the word at school is she never even let you between her legs.’

Under her shirt, Kirk crushed Margie’s nipples between his thick fingers, and the girl wailed. ‘Shit! Shit, stop it!’ She wrenched away from him, crying. ‘You crazy asshole!’

‘Don’t talk about Ashlynn. You hear me? Don’t even say her name to me.’

Margie’s knees knocked like a baby deer’s. Tears of anger and pain rained down her face along with makeup, and strands of her blond hair lay plastered on her cheeks. Her lower lip bulged in defiance. ‘Oh, yeah? Ashlynn, Ashlynn, Ashlynn. As in Ashlynn Steele would never dream of getting banged by Kirk Watson.’

Kirk shot off the bench with his forearm cocked, and Margie ran. She fell down in her clumsy heels and got up, drenched in mud, but she ran through the park until she reached the footbridge that arched across the Spirit River into downtown Barron. They heard a frantic clop-clop as she sprinted across the bridge, arms pumping. In the middle of the bridge, under the twinkling lights, she finally looked back and realized that Kirk wasn’t chasing her. She stopped, panting, and held out her hand with her middle finger raised. She shouted a curse at the top of her lungs.

Then she turned and ran until she disappeared into the town.

Kirk landed his fist on the bench so hard that the vibrations nearly pushed Lenny off the seat. It happened like that with Kirk sometimes. He boiled over like a pot of water, and you didn’t want to be nearby. Lenny had been hit. Burned. Choked. Kirk took an unopened beer bottle and marched toward the nearest oak tree and smashed it into popcorn against the trunk. Beer foamed white, splashing over him. Glass cut and scratched his hand, drawing blood. Lenny heard murmurings of fright elsewhere in the park.

Kirk spun back, sucking the blood from his fingers. ‘We’re not done. You got that? Ashlynn’s dead. People gotta pay.’

‘I hear you, Kirk,’ Lenny said softly. ‘What’s next?’

‘We need to teach Tanya Swenson a lesson. The little bitch ran away and left Ashlynn there. Get her out of school tomorrow, Leno. Bring her to the football field for me. We’ll make sure she gets a message to take home to her daddy.’

‘I don’t know, man.’

‘Do it!’ Kirk snapped. ‘I’ll be waiting.’

‘Okay. Sure. Whatever you say.’

‘Then we deal with Olivia Hawk.’

Lenny paled. ‘She’s in prison,’ he protested.

‘The judge will let her out.’

‘Yeah, but why bother with her? Everybody says she’s going to be locked up for life.’

‘Then we’ll give her something to think about while she rots,’ Kirk said.

Lenny’s palms were sweating again. He felt himself growing aroused at the thought of Olivia. She was the only one he wanted, with her pouty lips and the brown hair that always fell over one eye. When she talked in class, she was so intense. So sure of herself. She was amazing. He wondered what it would be like to sleep with someone like that, but she barely knew who he was.

That didn’t stop him from fantasizing about her.

Following her.

‘Do you really think Olivia killed Ashlynn?’ he murmured to his brother.

Kirk’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you talking about, Leno?’

‘It just doesn’t seem like something she would do. Not her.’

‘How the hell would you know?’

‘I don’t, man.’

‘She did it,’ Kirk insisted. ‘That bitch shot Ashlynn. End of story.’

6

‘Do I get to tell the judge that I’m not guilty?’ Olivia asked.

Chris shook his head. ‘Not yet.’

‘So what do I say?’

‘For now, nothing. Leave it to me.’

‘But people should know that I didn’t do it,’ his daughter protested. ‘Why can’t I tell them?’

‘You will. Later. This is just a detention hearing. If it lasts five minutes, that’s a long time. If the judge releases you, which I expect he will, we’ll work through some paperwork, and then I’ll take you home.’

‘Great. Jail still sucks.’

‘I know.’

He didn’t add that an overnight stay in jail was nothing compared with the prospect of twenty-five years.

‘Florian Steele probably has the judge in his back pocket,’ Olivia said. ‘He won’t let me out.’

‘Yes, he will. It’ll be okay, but keep your cool in there. Don’t say anything, don’t do anything, and don’t swear. Got it? If you act out, you give the judge an excuse to keep you locked up.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

Chris added, ‘The county attorney thinks we should consider having you stay in jail for your own protection.’

‘No way. Not a chance.’

‘I didn’t say that’s what we’re going to do, but he’s right about keeping you safe. I’ll hire someone to watch the house in St. Croix, and once we get there, you stay put.’

‘So what, I’m a prisoner at home, too?’ Olivia asked. ‘I can take care of myself, Dad.’

‘No, you can’t.’

His daughter made a face at him, but she didn’t argue.

‘Did you tell Mom I didn’t do it?’ she asked.

‘I did.’

‘What did she say? Did she believe me?’

‘Of course, she did.’ Chris had no intention of sharing Hannah’s secret doubts. Olivia didn’t need to hear them.

He checked his watch. They needed to be in court in less than fifteen minutes. ‘Listen, I don’t think you shot Ashlynn, but I also think you’re not telling me everything you know. You can’t keep things from me, Olivia. You’re being charged with murder.’

‘I don’t know what happened, Dad. Really.’

‘Let’s start at the beginning. Who knew you were meeting Tanya out at the ghost town that night?’

‘Nobody.’

‘Did you see other cars? Did you see or hear anything to suggest that someone else was in the town?’

‘No, we didn’t hear anyone. Nobody was around until Ashlynn showed up.’

‘Where did she come from?’

‘She said she was heading back to Barron and got a flat tire.’

‘Did she say where she’d been?’

‘No.’ After a pause, she added, ‘Ashlynn told us she’d been driving for hours.’

‘Hours?’ Chris asked.

‘That’s what she said. I figured she was lying, but—’ Olivia stopped, biting her lip.