Eleven
The Canceled Killer’s eighth victim raised money on GoFundie for her dog’s cancer treatment but then ended up keeping the cash and euthanizing her dog instead of saving the animal. The woman was “put to sleep” with a dog bed to her face.
—Crime Hive podcast
Jude and I were surrounded, but I kept my eye on Eric’s two friends. Frat Boy and No Neck blocked our exit to the street. Eric just grinned at us, gloating. Someone needed to break it to him that he did not have main character energy.
I didn’t feel like teaching boys a lesson today, but I guess the universe had other plans for me.
Jude’s gaze nervously flicked from one guy to the next.
“This is all some misunderstanding,” Jude said, playing peacemaker. “We don’t want any trouble.”
Speak for yourself, I thought. No Neck eyed Jude as if he was going to be the problem. I was going to enjoy using his poor threat assessment skills against him.
“I don’t want to hurt you guys,” I said. “So how about you run along?”
I made a little sweeping gesture with my hands.
Normally, I’d be all about bashing in heads, but Oscar was already mad at me, and I didn’t need to test his patience.
Plus, any fight could go sideways at any time.
And Jude might get hurt, which was a no-go.
Not to mention, Eric worked for Irene, and I didn’t want to leave her short-staffed when I put his weasel face in the hospital.
No Neck laughed. Frat Boy joined in. Eric just grinned.
“You gonna let your lady get you in trouble like that, bruh?” Frat Boy asked Jude.
“You’re gonna pay for her mouth,” No Neck promised.
“I really don’t think you guys should be saying things like that.” Jude’s gaze flicked to me. He looked worried. Not for us, I was pretty sure. For them.
“We’ll say whatever the hell we want.” Frat Boy lunged first, heading for Jude, because I think he was trying to impress No Neck, but I intercepted him with a quick side jog.
My right palm sent his fist off track. I grabbed his wrist with my other hand, twisting sharply.
I didn’t hold back, and I heard the ligaments make a satisfactory pop as he yelped in pain.
Jude flinched and covered his face with both hands.
One of my swift elbow jabs to Frat Boy’s temple cut his cry short. He crumpled to the ground, groaning. Jude’s hands fell from his face, and he glanced over my left shoulder, eyes growing wide.
“Look out!” Jude warned as No Neck came at me from behind, but I turned, driving my heel into No Neck’s knee.
His howl of pain drowned out the twangy snick of his ACL as he dropped to one leg.
Wasting no time, I grabbed his hair and pulled his head down, meeting him with a pretty potent knee strike to his face.
“Oooh!” Jude let out a low murmur of empathetic pain. “Ouch.”
No Neck fell backward, clutching his nose.
Frat Boy was back for more, though, cradling his wrist as he swung wildly at me.
I dodged and weaved, and then gave him several hard jabs to his stomach and a solid kick to the babymaker, sending him to the ground.
No Neck grabbed my hair from behind in a surprise attack, but I was ready.
I grabbed his wrist and twisted, and then was free of his grasp when he could no longer hold me.
I punched him hard again in his broken nose, making him wail.
A swift kick sent his knee completely out of joint, and he screamed and crumpled to the ground.
That just left Eric.
“You should run,” I advised him.
“I’d listen to her,” Jude agreed.
Eric shook his head. “Mayor paid us to fuck you up, so that’s what we’re going to do.”
“The mayor?” Jude asked, perplexed.
“Seriously?” I shook my head. Figured that Stokes would pay people to fight his battles. Mr. Silver Spoon had been doing that since he was born. “And here I thought you actually were showing some initiative, Eric.”
“Bitch,” Eric sneered as he pulled a knife from his pocket.
Okay, not great.
Being overconfident, that was my mistake.
“Uh… Ella?” Jude asked, anxious. He moved forward to protect me, which was brave and adorable but foolhardy. He had fewer defenses than a pincushion.
“Get behind me,” I told him. Irene had trained me. I just needed to remember what to do. I’d never actually had to disarm anyone IRL.
Light from the single streetlamp nearby glinted off the blade.
The knife looked pretty menacing, I’m not going to lie.
He lunged forward. I sidestepped. A quick step forward closed the distance between us, and I grabbed his wrist with both hands, twisting sharply and forcing the knife to clatter to the asphalt.
I delivered a palm to his chin and punched his throat, hard.
He gurgled, eyes wide, as he staggered back, choking.
I finished with a spinning back kick to his chest, sending him clattering into a row of trash cans.
I scanned the scene. Frat Boy and No Neck writhed on the ground. Eric did his best to crawl away.
“Damn,” Jude said as he whistled and surveyed the scene of carnage. “Remind me never to cross you.”
But I barely heard him because I’d spun on my heel and was stalking away.
“El?” Jude asked, confused. “Where are you going?”
“City hall. I need to talk to the mayor.”
“Shouldn’t we call the paramedics?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.
“I didn’t break their fingers,” I said, not feeling very charitable right at that moment. “They can do it themselves.”
Jude frowned.
“You can stay and help them, but I’m going to city hall.”
Jude didn’t hesitate. “I’ll drive you.”
Jude stood with me on the steps of city hall, a redbrick building with a bell clock tower, adjacent to the county courthouse where I’d had to go and sit in a courtroom to watch Alec Stokes walk free. I fixed my gaze on the big wooden sign that read LAKE SANGUIS—TRANQUIL AND SERENE.
My ass.
“You don’t have to do this,” Jude said, drawing my attention away from the sign. “We should talk to Oscar before those guys make a statement to the police.”
“They won’t be making any statements to the police,” I said, certain.
Then they’d have to talk about why three of them tried to jump me at my house and why I kicked all their butts, which they’d never want to admit.
Then they’d also have to explain how the mayor turned up in their Paymo feed with $500 or $5,000 or whatever agreed-upon price, no doubt with the boxing glove emoji, black eye emoji, fist bump emoji.
“And Oscar’s already mad at me. I just want to have a word with the mayor. I won’t do anything more.”
“He’s probably not even here,” Jude pointed out.
“I heard he likes to stay late in the office. And not to work.” The best time to harass people was generally when there were no witnesses around.
Jude looked at me, uneasy.
“You don’t have to come.”
“I’m coming,” Jude said, resolute.
Jude and I walked through the revolving doors of city hall, where the information desk stood empty. Of course. It was after six. We passed by glass-doored offices with empty desks, and computers showing the bouncing squiggles of screensavers. Our footsteps seemed to echo on the tiled floor.
“Okay, well, nobody’s around,” Jude said, sounding relieved, as he glanced into another empty office. “Not even cleaning staff.”
“They’re probably at the Hot Cider Crawl,” I said, noticing a flyer left on someone’s desk.
It was one way the town tried to attract tourists during the off-season.
Tonight people gathered at the lakefront to drink hot cider (spiked or not), throw axes at hay bale targets, and try not to spill their hot beverages while riding the pop-up Ferris wheel.
Given that it was a milder than usual October evening, more people would be cashing in their tickets for cider and carnival games tonight.
If this were a Hallmark movie, it would be where the main character would bump into the romantic lead, spill cider on his checkered flannel coat, and instantly fall in love.
But this wasn’t a Hallmark movie.
“Stokes!” I shouted loudly. “Stokes! Where are you?”
My voice echoed through the empty office.
“You too scared to face me?” I shouted. “Had to send hired goons after me?”
I stalked to his assistant’s desk, past the wall of dumb tourist posters with slogans like “Come for the Views, Stay for the Beer!” and “Lake Sanguis: Wisconsin’s #2 Tourist Destination!”
Kenzie herself graced the cover of one poster, balanced on one water ski behind a powerboat in the middle of the lake, her blond hair flying, her lipstick perfectly in place as she waved to the camera. I wondered how often Stokes had lusted over that picture.
My eyes fell on Stokes’s portrait, with his spongy red hair and smug smile, and it occurred to me I might not be able to control myself when I saw him.
“Get your cowardly butt out here!” I shouted again. I stalked to his door, Jude scurrying to keep up. His office was empty, but as I crossed the threshold, the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. My body realized something was very wrong with this office before my mind did.
That’s when I noticed his deck shoes, toes-up near the corner of his desk.
“Stokes?” I asked the shoes as I moved around the desk and saw they were, indeed, attached to the man.
Stokes lay on the ground, face up, his green eyes now cloudy and opaque, staring at the tiled ceiling. His lip was split as well, as if he’d been in a fistfight, but that wasn’t the real problem.
It was the pool of blood seeping out beneath his red hair in a puddle.
He wasn’t just hurt.
He was dead.
And lying next to his body was a single lemon.