Brian Freeman - Spilled Blood

He dialed again. ‘Pick up, Julia,’ he murmured, but if she was there, she let him stew in silence.

Florian turned off the highway and followed the sharp incline of the bluff. The city, the river, the company were all in the valley below him. He reached his U-shaped driveway and saw that Julia had turned off every light in the house. She was leaving him in darkness. The gulf in their marriage pained him. It was hard enough to deal with the loss of his daughter, but even worse to do so alone. He wondered if Julia realized how much he still loved her. He wondered if she knew he had always been faithful.

He pressed the garage door opener and almost drove into the closed door. He pushed the button again, but the door didn’t move. He studied the unlit house and realized that the power was out. When he looked at the rest of the neighborhood, he saw that lights burned everywhere but here.

Something else was going on, and he didn’t like it.

Florian unlocked his glove compartment. He kept a Ruger 9mm pistol there at all times. Everyone knew who he was; everyone knew he had money. He couldn’t take chances with pirates on the rural roads. He took the butt of the pistol in his hand, checked it, and got out of the car into the rain. He followed the flagstones on his walkway and reached his front door.

It was ajar. Rain and dirt streaked the crack of the opening onto the plush white carpet.

He pushed open the door with his shoulder. Inside, with no electricity, the house was absolutely still, and the air was growing cold. The security system was off. He couldn’t see, but he could trace every inch of the house blindfolded. He led with the barrel of the gun and headed for the magnificent spiral staircase that climbed to the bedrooms.

Halfway up the steps, he called for her. ‘Julia!’

His voice, shattering the silence, sounded loud. He didn’t care who heard him. If someone was here, they’d already seen his headlights as he arrived. They knew he was in the house. They knew where he would go. To find his wife.

‘Julia!’ he shouted again.

She didn’t answer, or she couldn’t answer. He was terrified of what he would find.

Florian climbed to the landing. Their master suite was in front of him. Through the doorway, he saw a light winking at him. It wasn’t one of their lamps; it was the flame of a candle. He thought for a moment that the dark house was Julia’s idea of romance, but when he slipped inside, he found his fears realized. The bedroom was empty. His wife wasn’t here. Instead, the candle teased him from her nightstand.

He saw a single sheet of paper on the polished oak beside the candle. A message.

Florian knew what it was. He knew who had sent it. He walked to the bed and stared down at the ivory wax melting into drippy streaks on the candlestick and forming a hot liquid pool at its base. The note on the nightstand was illuminated by the dancing flame, but he hardly dared to pick it up.

He thought: Julia.

He took the message in his hand, and he felt his entire world crashing down as he read it. First his daughter. Now his wife. There was nothing left.

TO THE ATTENTION OF

MR. FLORIAN STEELE

YOUR WIFE IS GONE

HER LIFE IS NOW IN MY HANDS

YOU CANNOT ESCAPE

YOUR OWN DESTRUCTION

YOU CANNOT SAVE

YOUR WORLD

YOU CAN ONLY SAVE HER

I WILL CALL YOU

AND YOU WILL COME TO ME

ALONE

MY NAME IS

AQUARIUS

PART FOUR

EVERY CREEPING THING

44

Lenny slept in the pick-up overnight. He awoke at the first light of dawn, freezing, his head pounding. He’d taken a six-pack of beer as he escaped the house, and he’d drunk more than he ever had in his life while sitting in the truck. The windshield was covered over with tracks of frost. The rain had stopped, but water dripped from the tree branches, and the hood was covered with wet, dead leaves. On the horizon, there was no sun, only steel-gray clouds. He was parked on the border of a state park west of the city. From his hiding place, he’d seen the lights of police cars coming and going at high speed on the county road. They were looking for him.

He was starving; he hadn’t eaten since his slice of pizza at noon the previous day. He pawed through the junk piled in the back seat and found an unopened power bar. He ripped off the foil and ate it in three bites, choking on the gluey peanut butter. It only made his stomach growl, wanting more. He thought about stopping at a Holiday gas station for an egg sandwich, but he couldn’t take the risk of being seen.

The truck smelled like smoke and beer. It smelled like Kirk. Daylight didn’t change the night into a bad dream. His brother was dead. Kirk would never hit him again; he would never protect him again; he would never give him money and skin mags; he would never take him to the woods to shoot, or give him joints, or tell him stories about the girls he fucked. For years, Kirk had been the center of his world, and now he was gone.

Lenny sat in the pick-up, and as the reality of his situation sank into his brain, he bawled like a baby. Snot dripped from his nose to his mouth and down the back of his throat. He coughed it up, hacking so hard that his lungs felt raw. He wasn’t crying for Kirk. He was crying for himself. He was angry at the people he’d lost. They’d all abandoned him, every single person in his life. His mother, his father, his brother. All gone. He was utterly, absolutely, completely, for ever alone.

He knew what Kirk would say to him, with a rap to his skull. Grow some balls, Leno.

That was right. He wouldn’t run away and hide. He wouldn’t be a coward and a pussy anymore. He would do what Kirk would have done.

He would make them all pay.

Lenny wiped his face and saw his reflection in the rear-view mirror. Red-streaked eyes. Scraggly, unshaved beard, with hairs of different lengths on the point of his chin. A pus-filled white pimple bulging from the base of one nostril. The cut on his face was puffy; it was getting infected. His sallow skin looked like dishwater. He was a mess. Not handsome and powerful like Kirk. Not a clean-shaved blond god like Johan Magnus. It didn’t matter.

He would make them all pay.

Lenny turned on the engine, and the big motor growled like a tiger. The radio blared Kid Rock. He checked the highway, but he didn’t see any cops. It was early. Even so, he stuck to the back roads, past block-long towns and empty farms where you could count the people on your fingers. That was what Kirk would have done to give everybody the slip. Stay off the grid, and nobody will find you, Leno.

Everywhere he looked, he saw water left over by the storm. Standing water on the roads. Lakes across the corn fields. Ditches filled like swimming pools. Even without the rain, it was an ugly day, black and cold. A day for bad things to happen.

The ruts of the dirt roads hammered his kidneys, and he bounced in the seat. He reached over to the glove compartment and took out Kirk’s silver wrap-around shades. They cost two hundred bucks. No one touched them but Kirk. Lenny figured Kirk wouldn’t care now, and he slid them over his eyes. The shades were a loose fit, and the day was so dark he didn’t need them, but when he checked his look in the mirror again, his teeth flashed into a crooked smile. He was cool.

He reached over to the passenger seat, where there was one can of beer left from the six-pack. He popped the top with his index finger, and some of the foam burbled out of the hole. He took a swig. It was warm, but he didn’t care. He was feeling better. He had a plan.