Mecca
The hunter had become the hunted. The notion caused a sneaky smile to slide across my lips and my mind to churn with devious intentions. The man who had been following me for the past six hours sat inside his black, Dodge Charger with his neck on a constant swivel, searching unsuccessfully for me.
The swirl and hum of vehicles zipping by on the busy stretch of intersection we sat on barely registered because my focus was aimed at him. He had exited his car twice in the past thirty minutes searching for my car.
His engine roared to life when he climbed back into the driver’s seat and prepared to pull away from the curbside of the random hotel I had led him to.
The dark blue Suburban I sat in was parked behind him. I sat peering from my low crouch in the driver’s seat, observing his every move. He slammed his hand against his steering wheel, his curse words as loud as if I had heard them as he was finally accepting the fact that he’d lost me.
A noisy growl tore from his car’s revved engine before he drove off and merged into the energetic flow of the Downtown Denver traffic.
He had officially become my prey.
I eased into the intersection and prepared to follow him now. A quick call to a few of my men initiated the plan that not only made the hunter lose sight of my car, but allowed me to switch vehicles altogether.
I trailed him until the high rise hotels started to turn into motels, and the five-star restaurants turned into corner stores. He made a sharp right turn into the driveway of one of the cheap motels off Highland Boulevard. I followed, turning into the parking lot where I presumed he was staying.
The dump was called, The Downtower. It should have been renamed, the Downtrodden, with its white chapped wood siding and fake brick accents peeling off the walls. The motel was nestled on a street filled on either side with others just as seedy.
The upper level of the building hung slightly over the bottom and sections of the metal upstairs railings were missing. The buildings structure was formed into a wide open rectangle that encircled the bustling parking lot where the people walking by weren’t afraid to bend and peek into the vehicle at me.
A tall thick row of hedges provided a privacy wall that blocked the parking lot from the main highway. The stench that was appropriately labeled, fresh hell, had me closing the vehicle’s ventilation ducts to the outside.
The parking lot was the main meeting grounds for hookers, johns and lot-lizards on the hunt for truckers as dusk settled. Guest freely carried out their nefarious acts of sex and drug exchanges without fear.
My target had parked a few spaces away from the room I watched him enter on the bottom floor, three doors down from the out-of-service ice machine. I eased into a parking spot four cars away from his and waited two hours before he turned off the lights in his room.
After another fifteen minute wait for good measure, I eased out of my vehicle and crept closer to his. I needed to find clues as to who he was before I went for his room.
The weapons and kill-kit I’d found in the trunk of his car was all the proof I needed to know that he had taken lives. As far as I was concerned, his plan was to try and take mine next. Why the hell else would he devote so much time to watching me?
The first four determined steps I took in the direction of my target’s room came to a halt when a pot-bellied, dirty white T-shirt wearing man stood in my path. The pale bumpy skin of his chin was littered with crumbs and bore smears of whatever he had eaten. He was probably twenty-five, but life, the one he had chosen, had him looking fifty, and he smelled like the inside of someone’s asshole.
“How much?” he asked, pulling out a wad of crumpled bills from his worn jeans pocket.
I didn’t have time for this shit, so I pulled the only man I wanted keeping me company, HB, otherwise known as my Glock-17. First name Hell, last name Bound, HB was ready to speak power into his name whenever he appeared.
When the tip of HB’s barrel sat aimed at the man’s protruding nose hairs, his hands flew into the air, causing the money to fall to the ground.
“My stomach turned from the sight and smell of you. You, along with your entire family lineage don’t have enough money. Now step, the fuck, out of my way.”
He scurried out of my way so fast that his dirty, white tennis shoes with the flapping tongues, scraped against the cracked sidewalk. His heavy breathing sounded behind me as he scrambled to pick up his money. His rapid steps faded before he ducked into his room and slammed the door shut.
Picking my target’s door lock was easy. The hard part was taking apart the housing of the chain lock without waking up the loud snoring asshole who had been following me.
Grateful for the three uninterrupted minutes it had taken to complete the task, I eased into the dark room and locked the door behind me. The creak of the door’s closure along with my movements caused the man’s snores to hitch before he flipped over, making the cheap mattress springs squeak.
The sparse illumination from the bedside digital clock provided the lighting I needed to stroll quickly across the dark room, but my movement heightened more of his awareness. He hopped up with a start, and I froze in front of the nightstand on the opposite side of the bed. Was he glaring into the dark to determine if I was real or because he knew I was?
I made quick work of tossing the lamp shade aside, picking up the thick wooden base, and yanking the plug out of the wall.
“Who the fuck—”
I swung the lamp like a bat, unwilling to wait to find out his intentions. The hard lick connected with the side of his head as the force from the impact vibrated up my arm. The hit stunned him, but he managed to roll out of bed, causing me to lose sight of him.
Like a seasoned stunt woman, I jumped, tucked, and rolled across the springy mattress to reach him before he got to his gun. I swung the lamp base like I was at a golf tournament, sending three solid licks upside his head that lured him to la-la-land.
Moments later, a low thud from my heels sounded against the dirty, puke-green carpet as I inched closer to the bloody asshole lying at my feet. A glass of cold water to the face had sprung the lock on the stupor he had been in.