Cherry Bomb

Touched the raw flesh, feeling his heart.

Nothing. No beat.

Hands shaking, I tore at his tape gag, trying not to look at his eyes, his dead eyes, wide open in agony and showing only the whites.

Put my ear to his mouth.

No breath. He wasn’t breathing.

CPR. He needed CPR. I put my lips to his-when was the last time I kissed him?-then pulled away in horror.

He tasted…cooked.

I did it again, not hesitating, pinching his nose, blowing life into his lungs.

There was a wet, rumbling sound, and then brown blood frothed out of his mouth.

I straddled him, put my hands on his chest, began doing compressions.

Blood foamed out of his nose. Out of the corners of his eyes.

“Jack…”

Phin, touching my shoulder.

“The defibrillator,” I said. “We can shock him again. Get his heart started.”

Phin gave me a gentle tug. I shoved his hands away, went back to heart compressions.

“Jack, he’s lost too much blood.”

“Give me the goddamn defibrillator!”

Phin wrapped his arms around me, pulled me off Alan. I brought my heel down on his instep and he released me, then I spun around and punched him in the jaw, staggering him back. I sca

It had to work.

I picked up the pads, shakily placed them on Alan’s chest, and then noticed that the mattress was soaked in blood.

Too much blood. Much too much.

I gasped, brought a hand to my mouth. Then I placed my palm on his chest, pressed down. More blood sluiced out from under him, between his legs.

“No. Oh no no no no…”

Phin put his arms around me again. I heard sirens in the distance.

“We should go, Jack.”

I reached for Alan’s face, touched his cheek. Then I used two fingers to close his tortured eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

The sirens got louder. Phin half pulled/half carried me away from the bed, past the bathroom, where I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. A person, hiding under the sink.

Alex.

I shoved Phin back, reaching for the gun in my belt. Except I didn’t have a gun in my belt. It had somehow gotten in Phin’s belt. I yanked it free, aimed, and fired three times as fast as I could pull the trigger.

Alex didn’t move.

Phin wrestled the gun away from me. I let him, reaching for the bathroom light.

Blood, everywhere. From the woman on the ground. A woman who had a knife stuck in her chest, and who definitely wasn’t Alex.

I crumpled to the floor. Again Phin supported me, holding me around my back with his hand under my armpit, maneuvering me down the hallway, to the stairwell, down the stairs, through the lobby, into the parking lot, while tears streaked down my face.

By the time I was in the truck I was wailing louder than the police cars that were surrounding us.

CHAPTER 40

NOW THAT WAS GREAT. The only thing missing was sound. It would have been wonderful to hear Jack’s cries of anguish, Alan’s muffled screams, the zap of electricity. But then, the other patrons in the coffee shop might have complained.

Alex closes her laptop, then closes her eyes, reliving the scene in her head. Her favorite part had to be when Jack began CPR, not knowing that each time she pressed Alan’s chest, blood squirted out his ass. When she socked Phin-that was priceless too. The girl can hit hard. Jack was too self-absorbed to see Phin probe the inside of his mouth, pull out a tooth.

Yes, it worked much better than Alex could have hoped.

Now to concentrate on the next victim, the next phase of the plan.

Alex finishes her coffee, then gets back on the road. An hour later, she’s standing on the street corner in Chicago, hood up, sunglasses on, hands jammed into her pockets.

Winter will be here soon. Alex won’t miss it. Growing up in the Midwest, she has long outlived her fondness for snow and ice.

It will be so nice to go someplace where the only ice comes in drinks.

She stands there for twenty minutes before hearing a rumbling, up the street. Alex checks her watch as the truck passes by. Right on time. The first time she saw it, two weeks ago, was pure luck. Seeing it twice, same place, same time, isn’t luck. It’s a pattern.

It motors past, turning where it did before, and Alex jams her hands back into her pockets and heads for her car, parked in an alley a block away. She climbs in and heads north.

Ninety minutes later she’s back in her hotel room in Milwaukee, using the Internet to instruct her in the finer points of using cell phones as radio transmitters. Then she calls Samantha to plan their date.

“Is your neighbor going to babysit?”

“She said sure. Do you have a car?”

Alex considers the Prius, the dead yuppie still in the backseat.

“No. Do you?”

“Sure. Want me to pick you up at your place?”

Alex isn’t keen on letting Sam know where she’s staying.

“I’m already downtown. Why don’t we meet at a mall? Isn’t there one called Bayshore?”

“Yeah. I’ll meet you at J. Jill. Great store. You’ll love it. When?”

“An hour?”

“Excellent!”

“Quick question. Have you ever done a bachelor party?”

“You mean like go to the guy’s house, give them lap dances, pick up twenties out of the groom’s mouth with my hoo-ha?”

“Yeah, like that.”

“Once. Didn’t pay too well, and the guys were assholes.”

“Did you do it outlaw, no agency?”

“No, I went through a local place, called Laugh-O-Grams. They also send birthday party clowns and stuff. You thinking of trying that?”

“Just keeping my options open. Looking forward to seeing you.”

And Alex is. Men are fine, but women have their own par tic u lar flavor, and in many ways are more fun. Alex can’t wait to get into Samantha’s pants. It will be the perfect end to a perfect day.

CHAPTER 41

“JACK! PUT ON YOUR DAMN SEAT BELT!”

The Bronco jumped a curb, clipped a mailbox, and then fishtailed back onto the street. We had three or four squad cars behind us, sirens blaring, hot pursuit. I had a bump on my forehead from whacking it against the dashboard. Not what I’d been hoping for. I wanted to get thrown through the front windshield and splattered on the pavement. Let it end already.

Phin reached over, his hand seeking my seat belt. Not the easiest thing to do while cruising fifty miles an hour down a heavily populated side street. I shoved his arm away. We were in a residential area, single-family homes with carefully manicured front lawns. A place where you’d get married and settle down.

Something I’d fucked up twice.

He stopped trying to save my life and instead fiddled with his police band. I caught the word Staties.

“They’re calling in the state cops. We’re screwed.”

I didn’t care. Getting arrested was the least of my worries.

“Come on, Jack. Give me a suggestion here.”

“Ditch the car.”

He made an aggressive lane change, my shoulder bouncing off the passenger door.

“And try to make it on foot? We have to lose them first.”

“You can’t lose them. Air support is next. They’ll plot your route, take out your tires, follow you until you run out of gas. It’s over.”

“I say when it’s over.”

Typical macho bullshit. I wasn’t surprised. But then Phin did do something that surprised me. He tapped the brakes, jerked the wheel, and cut across someone’s driveway, the four-wheel drive digging trenches in the sod.

I flinched when we hit the backyard fence, popping onto someone else’s property. We bounced across their front lawn, back onto the street, and then Phin did the same thing all over again.