Chapter 21
Heath
A fucking psycho clown. I can’t believe I left her alone.
I do a reverse google image search on my phone and sure enough, the psycho clown is in Coney Island.
My mob experience tells me this might very well be a setup, a plan engineered to make me lose my training, where rage and fury will dominate, allowing emotions to dictate my decision-making.
If that’s their plan, it worked because nobody fucking touches Kat.
And I will slaughter my way through any obstacles put in front of me to save her.
My mind is impenetrable except for one thought, ticking away like a time bomb: Get to Kat.
Gravel kicks up under the wheels as I race my bike onto the road and out of the dunes, where I turn so hard and fast onto the highway that my bike leans almost parallel with the road.
Bat out of hell on a live-or-die recon mission.
My phone is in the clip, and I instruct it to dial Donavan on the off chance he’s in the area.
“Clifton, how many graves we digging tonight?” he answers the phone.
“I need backup. Luna Park in Coney Island.”
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. You stacking bodies tonight, bro.”
“I’m about to burn the whole mother fucker down if I don’t get my woman.”
“Ten-four.”
With that, I step on the gas and open throttle on the Sunrise Highway, weaving in and out between the occasional cars which honk their horns like I’m a threat to their immediate safety. They’re right. I am.
I make it to Brooklyn in record time and screech down Surf Avenue under the elevated train until I see the ominous shadow of the giant Wonder Wheel in the distance.
Somewhere, deep in my heart, I hold treasured memories of coming here in the summertime with my mom.
The break from the unrelenting city heatwaves to hit up the rides.
The ugly beach, which before Wainscott Hollow, was the only seaside I knew.
Funnel cakes and riding the Cyclone with Mom.
I’d even had hopes of bringing Kat here and reliving those good old days.
Never imagined in a million years we’d be here under such grim circumstances.
Now, this once-happy fantasy land has become a bad omen.
The stadium lights shine down on an empty macabre amusement park, and the smiles of the mascots on signs and rides have turned sinister after sundown.
I try to track Kat’s phone with an app I have, but it’s not picking up its location.
The last marker I can get on it brings me to a nearly abandoned parking lot behind the train station.
There, I see our old, shared hatchback, and it’s like a cleaver to my heart.
I automatically put my hand up to my chest as if my hand can ward off the heavy emotions heaving through my chest. I circle in and inspect the vehicle.
I’ve got to approach this with cold calculation and not let my heart influence anything.
I remember us driving Montauk highway, windows down, music blasting, on our way to spend the day fishing, hiking, or walking along the beach. So many days spent together in the bliss of not knowing the bullshit that lay ahead of us.
“Heath, look, I found a seahorse!” She ran to me from the waves, cradling her find in her palms. “I think it’s dead.”
“I’ve never seen one before.”
“They’re rare. I’ve never found one in all my time spent out here.
” She walked closer to me, the sun bringing out the caramel tones in her hair.
Freckle-faced and rapt with excitement, she proffered her find to me.
Together, we stared down at the small sea creature, which was equal parts bizarre and adorable.
“Don’t the male seahorses have offspring? Like, aren’t they the ones that get pregnant?”
She looked up at me, biting the side of her lower lip, and nodded seriously. “And they mate for life, Heath. Not a lot of marine animals do, but seahorses stay together no matter what,” she told me, her eyes searing into mine.
“Oh.” I felt her words in the base of my spine, longed to tell her that we’d be like the sea horses. I wanted to promise her forever and let her know how she made me feel, but we were supposed to be siblings, and I wasn’t supposed to have those kinds of feelings for my sister.
“Kat!” I scream into the whipping wind that intensifies the closer I get to the ocean. I don’t give a fuck if they hear me coming. I’ll come in guns blazing and slaughter whoever thinks they can touch what’s rightfully mine.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” I holler like a madman into the night.
I walk up a ramp past a gated and locked Luna Park, the rides sleeping, the shutters drawn on the kiosks that sell fair food during the day. The memories continue to assault me.
“We’d get funnel cake, ride the roller coaster. Mom always was up for a turn on the Cyclone. Even at that age, I knew she was trying to be the dad I never had.”
“What’s funnel cake?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never had funnel cake, Katelyn Shaw?”
“What, is it a city thing?”
“More like an American thing. Only at every fairground, carnival, and amusement park in the nation. Wainscott Hollow might be beautiful, but you’re missing out if they’ve never fed you funnel cake.”
She punched me in the arm playfully and then looked down, sheepish because we came from two different worlds.
“They got you eating caviar and Crème Brulé, but you’ve never had fairground food?
Man, I got to take you someday—to Coney Island.
We’ll eat Nathan’s hotdogs and funnel cake and ride the Wonder Wheel with the view of the whole park and out onto the ocean.
The beach gets packed, everybody blasts their music, and they sell cold beer and mango flowers right on the beach! ”
“What’s a mango flower?”
“It’s a Mexican treat. They slice the mango to look like a flower, and cover it in salt, hot sauce, and lime juice.”
“And that’s good?”
“Are you serious? It’s the best. You gotta try it. I cannot wait to take you! You’re gonna love it.”
Today there won’t be any rides or any funnel cake. Just sweet retribution.
I stalk across the boardwalk after jumping a chain link fence that wouldn’t keep out a persistent dog.
Some of the old boards are sun warped and jutting up with nails protruding.
Maybe I’ll use one of those to tear some mother fucker’s flesh from his bones.
I’m prepared for the murder and mayhem of many, but my gut tells me there’s only one person behind this disappearance.
The person who’s made Kat suffer her entire life.
The only person crazy and stupid enough to try to cross me. Henry Shaw.
I jump from the boardwalk down to the cold sand below. A murmur rises from the drunks who’ve taken shelter under here from the wind and cold. I turn and put a finger to my lips, my eyes narrowing at them.
“Seen a guy come this way? With a girl? Probably against her will.”
One of the guys rises from his sleeping bag and stumbles forward revealing a jack o’ lantern smile. His shaggy beard, mustache and twinkling eyes make him look like a gnome under the bridge.
“Went that way.” He points south toward Brighton Beach.
“Good looking out,” I tell him. I remove a hundred-dollar bill from my wallet. “I’ll give you another if you ain’t lying.”
“That way,” he insists, pointing in the same direction.
I hand him another hundred. “I’m gonna go kill him,” I tell the man and smile.
He grabs the money and rushes back to his spot under the boardwalk.
I charge into the night, head into the wind, taking the long beach diagonally. My hand rests on the grip of the gun in my pocket, and I can feel the weight of the knife I have in a calf holster on my leg.
Not a whisper of fear lives in my system. I’m a killing machine, and this is long overdue. Henry Shaw is about to meet his reckoning.