“I swear I don’t have it!” Lance yelled, waving his hands for emphasis. “Martin had it. I swear to God he did!” Spittle flew from his mouth, leaving a trail of drool on his chin.
“Uh. Guys!” Tripp called from upstairs.
Lance’s eyed widened, nostrils flaring. I grabbed a knife from the butcher block and gave Callum a look. He grinned sadistically and lowered his gun.
“Please. My fam–.”
With a ribbed steak knife lodged in the side of his throat, he choked.
Callum wrapped his gloved hand around the shiny red handle and pulled it out, jamming it back in an inch higher, going deeper, wiggling the blade back and forth as if he were really cutting apart a piece of rare meat. Blood sprayed out, staining the man’s light blue dress shirt, and the floor.
I dumped the remaining water onto the wife’s head and then dropped the pot, watching it bounce off with a small clang, falling onto its side with a clatter and landing in her husband’s growing pool of blood.
“Check down here,” I told Evie and Callum.
I moved from the kitchen towards the stairs, passing multiple family pictures hanging on the wall. At the top, I could hear muffled screams coming from the room at the end of the hall. It turned out to be a bathroom. Tripp was soaked, holding onto a struggling girl still covered in suds from her bubble bath.
A cellphone and earbuds floated in the water indicating she hadn’t heard a thing when we came in.
“Melody Parker,” I said, remembering her from when I’d first arrived in town. She was Mickey’s girl. The one he was trying to use to get over mine. She was a cute lil thing if you were into blondes with no owl features.
“Want me to drown her?” Tripp asked.
She made a sound, writhing her naked body like a snake against his front. I debated what use I would have for her, a plan piecing itself together the more I thought about it, one that took pressure off a future endeavor.
“Nah. Knock her ass out and then bring her down to the garage. I’ve got something we can use her for.”
“Will do.”
I left him to it, going room to room in search of this fucking flash drive.
I thoroughly trash the entire upper level, knocking all the pictures off the wall on my way back downstairs.
This was house two of two. That only left one more to search. Fortunately this time around, I was fucking the girl that lived there.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RHETT
My time here was dwindling down quicker than I expected. As soon as I cleaned up a few loosed ends I’d be on my way home, adjusting to the major change that was going to bring.
I stepped out onto the deck, slinging my duffel bag over my shoulder.
“You heading out?” Tripp asked from behind the grill.
“Yeah, I’ll be back for what we talked about. Where’d you stick her?”
“Some place these shitty come will never find when they realize she’s missing.”
“Good.”
I looked to Callum. His attention was trained on the water. I knew he has his own shit going on. There wasn’t too much the three of us didn’t share with one another, so I flat out asked.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course,” he replied, turning around to face me.
“I was just thinkin, earlier you said Annika would be a problem. What do you want to do with her?”
“What I want to do is toss the little bitch into the falls, but that’s not exactly subtle, is it?”
Callum laughed and ran a hand through his hair. “No, not really. I say let her hang herself. She’s got enough rope to do it.”
“Then we’ll wait and see how that pans out.” We dapped up, and I split, taking my Porsche and leaving the Challenger behind.
The engine was as quiet as a dream compared to that one so I didn’t have to worry about disturbing the neighborhood, and Emery would be warming Callum’s bed.
I made the drive across town in record timing thanks to the hour, pulling into Nova’s driveway at exactly two-fifty-two. All the lights in her house were off, both her cars in the garage. She’d been ignoring my text since I’d left her naked and freshly fucked. I guess we needed to go over a few more things, I couldn’t stand being ignored.
I entered her house the same way she had the day I picked her up, going through a door that led into the kitchen. The place was immaculate if you didn’t count the three empty bottles of Vodka sitting by the trash-can. I sat my duffel on the shiny island and unzipped it, removing what I needed.
I started in the basement and worked my way up through the first floor.
I examined every nook and cranny. I didn’t find anything, so I moved on.
Upstairs was even cleaner. Emery’s room was empty. A bathroom sat beside a linen closet. Another room at the end of the hall looked as if it hadn’t been touched in quite some time. This had to of been her parents’ room. I stepped in, noting she hadn’t tried to dismantle it. Clothes still hung in the closet; the bathroom still had a hamper partially full of dirty clothing.