23
“I think I need something stronger,” I bite when Gabe places a glass of water in front of me as I sit at his kitchen table, eager for answers. Once Z was okay, she wiped her tears away, climbed back into her van, and drove home.
“Water will do,” Gabe replies bluntly, and I feel I disappointed him again. They say you don’t know someone until you live with them, and Gabe has found out that I’m a whore with his son and Blake, a snoop, and now he knows that I work for a crime lord or whatever Smiler is.
Blake leans against the kitchen bench, arms folded across his chest, anger in his eyes as he watches me closely. I wait for one of them to speak, but instead, it’s as if they’re expecting me to say something. I’m a little choked, still in shock. I sip the cool water, finding it refreshing, then dip my fingers into the glass and pat my burning cheeks. My skin feels blistered, even though it’s not, my throat is hoarse dry, and my eyes gritty. But the heat in my cheeks is not just the fire; the penetrating stares I’m getting from these two contribute to that.
The front door slams, and a few beats later, Cormac pokes his head into the kitchen to see me sitting there. “Are you alright?” his voice cuts through the intensity, then turns to his father. “Is she hurt?”
“No, she’s fine,” Gabe replies, rubbing his chin with masculine hands that I long to be touched by to comfort me. It’s as if I’m suddenly made of poison and don’t want to come near me. Even at the fire, he touched my shoulder for two seconds before removing it.
“Am I in trouble?” I exclaimed, desperate to air my grievances and strip the plaster off the festering wound.
Gabe frowns at me, and I detect something disturbing behind his eyes. It reminds me of that day when he dropped the man from the window. That look in his eyes is almost haunting, making me feel a little uneasy. “No,” he replies. Why would you think that?”
I cough away a sensation that something is caught in my throat and sip some more water before answering, “Well…because you know…I don’t know.” I give up. Nothing makes sense anymore. I’m a murderer living under the roof of a detective who knows what I’ve done and is protecting me from being arrested and from the men who I’m trying to eliminate from the face of the earth.
“We know that you work there,” Gabe informs me. Obviously, Blake told them.
“So, why are you all staring at me like I’m a bucket of rattlesnake venom,” I sigh irritably. “I almost died. Z almost died. Fuck.”
“We kn-” Cormac’s voice catches. “We know you almost died, Rae. That’s why we’re fucking fuming.” His large hands clench into huge, angry fists, ready to plow into someone’s face. He would, though, he would punch the living shut out of someone who hurt me.
Okay, so the piercing looks I’m getting is not fury toward me, but the assholes who set the house on fire. Good. I’m glad we cleared that up.
“I think we were set up,” I state the obvious, holding back the tears and avoiding their stares. “Z received a text from the usual number, but when we arrived, there was no…blood. It was clean.” The weight of their stares makes my burning cheeks and throat mouth even worse. “So, I figured that one of Smiler’s men must’ve betrayed him, or maybe we annoyed Smiler-”
“Smiler?” Gabe interrupts curiously.
Blake answers for me, “That’s who she calls the boss.”
Gabe’s face crease into a smirk, amused by the chosen name. It’s nice to see such a serious man light up. “Why the name Smiler?”
“Because he leaves a smiley face in the blood,” I reply and catch an exchange between him and Blake, who shrugs nonchalantly.
“Why not?” Blake smiles mischievously at Gabe, and something stirs in my gut. “Every killer must leave his signature.”
Alarms are going off in my head. “Wait. What the hell is going on here?” I point my finger at Blake’s amused face.
Gabe’s smile vanishes. “This is not good,” his voice laced with an authoritarian tone, and his concern was directed at Blake and Cormac. “It came to fucking close. We need to be more vigilant.”
“What are you talking about?” I shrill, but my throat is so dry that I start coughing.
Gabe steps into the kitchen cupboard, takes out a bottle of cough medicine, and retrieves a spoon from the drawer. He unscrews the lid and, with steady hands, pours some brown-colored solution into the spoon. “Here,” he says, placing the spoon in front of my mouth. I open and pour the liquid into my gob.
“I’m not a kid,” I say, coughing from the medicine and patting my chest, liking his attention but also finding him patronizing. He views me as a kid, and I hate that.
Gabe places the bottle in front of me. “Three times daily, and that cough should be gone in a couple of days.” He checks his watch on his wrist, shoots Blake a look, makes a signal with his hand, and looks back at me. “I have to head back to work.”
I’m disappointed that he’s leaving me, but at least I have Blake and Cormac to explain to me what the fuck is going on. “Did you notice the houseplants? I call after him, and he glances back at me with a frown indented on his handsome face.
“Sounds like you’re getting comfortable,” he replies as those eyes search for houseplants.
“In the living rooms,” I educate him. “You haven’t noticed.”
“I just got here,” he replies. “Haven’t had a chance to breathe, let alone paw over houseplants.”
“If you don’t want them, then I’ll take them away,” I inform him in case he hates the idea.
He turns his back to leave. “Houseplants are fine.”
“A woman’s touch is needed around here. It’s so bland and…” cough, cough, cough, “I know I’m not here to stay long…” he’s still walking away from me as I talk. That’s so rude. As he disappears from sight, I yell, “But I felt it needed some color and personality.” Cough, cough, cough. “Don’t thank me.” I’m snarky because I stupidly want him to be appreciative and admit that he likes me living under his roof. God, I’m pathetic.
I catch the entertained look on Blake’s face. “You’re more interested in receiving praise about your houseplants than the fact someone tried to kill you?”
I flare my nostrils and raise my chin into the air. “All in a day’s work,” I reply, and Blake snorts while Cormac shakes his head. “I mean…it’s not like I’m living a normal life or work for normal people…or live with normal people for that matter.” I point my finger aggressively at where Gabe was standing moments ago.
Blake smacks his gums. “You hungry, Rae?”
“No, I’m confused,” I snap at him, and he grins rather than flinches, so I cool my jets to compose myself. “Thank you for saving my life. I hadn’t-”
“Forget it,” he waves his hand dismissively. “I happened to be nearby, so I arrived just in time.”
“Good,” I sigh with relief until my instincts stir. “Why would Smiler suddenly hate us?”
“It wasn’t…Smiler as you call him,” Cormac chimes in.
“How can you be so sure?” I had doubts when Z and I arrived, but I’m curious to hear what Cormac has to say, who, as far as I’m aware, has nothing to do with Smiler and his lackeys.
The boys exchange glances again, and I believe I’m missing out on something – a secret, a conspiracy, or a joke. This secret creates a strong bond between the three men yet leaves me cold as the one excluded. I’m the outsider who desperately wants to be included, perhaps to my detriment.
Cormac licks his lips, “Because Smiler just walked out of here.”
His words float in the air for a few beats before landing with a thud on my conscience. “I’m sorry?”
Cormac nods him toward the door. “The boss. The big guy. Smiler just left the building.”
Suddenly, I’m in a daze and can’t quite grasp what they say, “Gabe?”
Blake nods and holds up his finger. “Sort of. I’m the one who leaves the signature.”
“The smiley face in the blood?” I need it clarified because the walls are spinning, and my throat is quickly going from raspy to sore, and my head feels faint.
“Yeah, just for laughs,” Blake says casually. “That’s why we have such heavy security in this house and why we’re so careful in not letting anyone know who is behind the deaths. Including you.”
“Okay, wow…I never saw that coming,” I’m conflicted. Smiler and his lackeys are in this room and are not nice to the men they killed. Okay, that’s stupid to think. Luckily, I didn’t say it aloud, but I’m a little shocked.
“It’s a lot to take in,” Cormac says smoothly.
“And you’re part of it too?” I ask him as he watches me closely like he always does.
He nods as the corners of his mouth lift into an almost smile.
“But…it’s so gory. What are you doing to those people you take down there? Who are they?” I feel like I’m screeching, but I can’t get my head around it.
Smiler and his lackeys are seriously dangerous killers, like the worst of the worst, yet the part of me that revels in blood lust is utterly fascinated and always has been with this mysterious enigma that Z and I named Smiler. It’s such a strange concept to grasp that these butchers have been right under my nose the entire time.
“They’re not nice people in the first place,” Blake tells me casually. “And we make the world a better place when we remove them off the face of the earth. In many cases, we have to…” he dithers a little to choose his words carefully, “use certain measures to siphon information out of them about other abusers and the victims.”
“Abusers? They’re rapists?” I already suspected this, but I need to hear him say it.
“Paedos, rapists, scum that brutalize the elderly, men who perform gang warfare that terrorizes the good, decent folk of Torres Island, the usual suspects,” he says with a charming smile as the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. “We are why Torres Island has a low crime rate compared to other cities of this size.”
“Wow, that’s impressive,” I exclaim with a sense of pride that I’ve been sleeping with vigilantes, and if I weren’t feeling crap from being in the house fire, I would grow horny because that’s how much of a debase psychopath I’ve become. “Did Gabe always know that it was me cleaning up the mess he made?”
Cormac cocks his eyebrows into a yes. “He wasn’t overly happy about it when Zara recruited you, but we watched you every step of the way to ensure you didn’t stumble into trouble.”
“So, it was a mere coincidence that Z hired me?” I ask, wondering if there’s another secret hidden beneath layers of fabrication.
“Yeah,” Cormac chimes in now. “Pure coincidence, but we liked the look of you regardless and wondered if you’d be a good addition to our business.”
“Until we realized that you already had your own little murderous activities planned,” Blake added proudly. “Which proved that you needed more training if we were to bring you into our syndicate.”
“So, here we are,” Cormac resolves, tilting his head to the side, as he needs to look at me differently. “You’re living under the roof of one of the most prolific serial killers ever known in this state. Expect the fact that no one knows there is a serial killer rampant in Torres because we’re too damn good at covering our tracks and have an insider to fiddle with police records.”
Blake adds dispassionately, “Bad people have a tendency to attract trouble anyway, and if a bad person happens to go missing, police reports will conclude that it was a suicide or that they moved to state or something else. And who’s going to worry if a known paedo is found with a bullet hole in his head? It’ll be recorded as self-inflicted. Case closed.”
“Come on now, boys,” I chide, “there’s enough blood to fill the lake. That’s hardly from a single bullet wound.”
Blake opens the cupboard and takes out three coffee mugs and a packet of drinking chocolate powder. “Like I said,” he says with all the charm in the world, “Sometimes we need to get some information out of them, so I have to use a few little techniques to persuade them.” He pours milk into a saucepan. “And really, it’s their fault if they don’t comply in the first place. No one to blame but them for fucking laying their filthy fucking hands on a little girl or boy or organizing a grooming gang.”
I glance at Cormac, whose eyes watch me closely, waiting for a reaction to this quite upsetting news. Except, I’m not as perturbed by it as I should be. I feel part of something for the first time: our little exclusive club with a large No Entry stamped on the door unless you’re a special member like me. It’s all starting to make sense now how Blake and Cormac would appear at places, as if they happened to be nearby and stumbled across me. No, they were following me, not only following me but covering my bloody tracks.
I suspect the following weeks are going to be fun. Now, I’m willing to join this newfound murder club of vigilantes. Bit by bit, the weight of the past few weeks slides off my back, releasing a new sense of freedom and vigor. With these men by my side, I can achieve anything.
“Hot chocolate?” Blake asks, holding up the milk container.
“Sure,” I reply casually. What else could quench my thirst more than hot chocolate after a conversation on slashing paedos and rapists to death? “Are you going to tell me who you suspect tried to burn us alive?”
Cormac chews the inside of his mouth while relaxing back in his chair. “I’ll give you two guesses.”
I chuckle because I don’t need two guesses. I place the teaspoon in my mouth to suck off the cough mixture residue while all eyes are on me, waiting expectantly to say something. But I think I have known all along who sent those men to jump me in the garage and break into my apartment. Oh yes, I’ve known all along, and perhaps I knowingly lured him to the killing house where one day I would end his life.
“Does his name start with B?” I ask, drilling them in the eyes while I continue to suck on that spoon with pouted lips, while I’m sure they’re imagining that spoon is their cocks.