The Suppressor by Erik Carter (best free novels .txt) 📗

he jockeyed his body into position. Legs over the console, to the pedals. Left hand on the wheel.

A glance to the side. Tanner and Pace. Feet away. Screaming. Guns aimed.

He made eye contact with Tanner.

Tanner’s shoulders dropped. His brow released its pinched tension. And his mouth fell open into a look not unlike the one Charlie had given him a few minutes earlier when he found out Jake was a cop.

A look of betrayal.

Tanner had sensed what Jake was about to do, that he was going to flee. Jake could see it in his eyes.

Burton’s words came to Jake again, quelling the momentary guilt.

You stole from me, Pete, so I’m going to steal something from you. When I do, I want you to remember something—everyone will be involved, and we’ll take our time.

Hurry.

A bullet hissed past the car, and Jake dropped farther below the dash. He pressed the clutch pedal, threw the stick shift into reverse, then did a quick shuffle of his feet, dropping the clutch and smashing the gas pedal.

The Taurus’s tires screeched, and it flew back. Jake gritted his teeth as he clenched the steering wheel and guided the car blindly from his crouched position.

SMASH! 

He struck the wall. A shower of sparks illuminated the cab.

A few feet away, a bullet smashed into a dumpster.

To the end of the alley. A gust of wind blew in through the shattered window. He cleared the threshold and made it to the street.

He immediately yanked the wheel to the side, bolted up in his seat, threw the stick into first.

And barreled off.

Heading for the Farone mansion.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Jake burst through the front entrance of the Farone mansion. His shoes squeaked on the parquet floor.

“C.C.!”

His Colt was in his hand. He’d cleared the door, his technique piss-poor and reckless, emotion overtaking him. His academy training was now distant and staticky, lost in the swirling storm of his chaotic mind.

The house felt empty, humming with nothingness and the quiet aftershocks of violence. There was an earthy smell, something raw and natural overpowering the warm scents normally associated with the home.

Sprinting. Through the foyer, across the expanse of the great hall, down the dimly lit hallway toward the library. His footsteps echoed to the second-floor balcony, off the wainscoting and the coffered ceiling.

He halted. His shoes screeched again.

A flash of something terrible. Through the doorway of the office. Unmistakable death. Blood.

The leather chair behind the desk, out of place, by the left corner and resting against the back wall. Sylvester. Slouched. Arms splayed off the sides of the chair. Mouth open. Eyes open. A massive patch of blood on his shirt.

“Shit…”

Jake glanced to Sylvester’s chest. Not moving. The blood on Sylvester’s shirt was going dark, congealing.

Jake took off.

His breathing was detached. Tingling in his forehead. A flush of cold over his moist skin.

Around the corner, into the library.

The sofa. The gap beneath it showed the floor beyond.

C.C.’s calf. Her green leggings. The bottom of her dress. Motionless.

A wet puddle, glistening in the library’s warm lighting.

Jake’s hand went to the sofa. He whipped around the corner.

The blood was a pool, and she lay in the center, on her stomach.

A sucking noise from his throat.

She was completely still, as dead as her brother.

Not at peace.

Violence had twisted her body. Perfectly motionless but with the appearance of movement, like unmoving action evoked by a talented painter.

Her left arm reaching up, fingers splayed.

Right arm behind her back, hand cupped.

Legs staggered, bent at the knees.

Dress off her right shoulder, a tear in the side.

Motionless motion, trying to swim out of the blood.

Her face was unrecognizable. Half of it was no longer a face.

Long, curly, black hair fanned in a circle, matted in the blood. There was a hole in the back of her head. Black. Red. Wet.

Jake stumbled. The gun dropped from his hand, clattered away.

The sucking noise in his throat crackled.

He fell forward, right knee, left knee, onto his stomach. His palms went forward, splashing in the deep puddle of her blood. Not cold. But not warm. His fingers squished into the rug.

He tried to say her name.

C.C.

Popping sounds from the back of his throat. No words.

I love you.

Nothing. Not even the popping sounds.

He lifted his hand out of the blood, shaking, reached for her.

And quickly brought the hand to his face. Vomited. Bile shot through his fingers. He felt her not-warm blood on his cheeks, his lips.

He saw her face. Not her face. Bulging, contused. Half of it skinless. Underlying tissue.

The light feeling swept over his skin again.

Into his head.

Cold.

Bright.

He fell.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Echoing sounds somewhere in the distance.

Small taps. Little pops. Coming at Jake, circling closer, through a tunnel he felt but didn’t see.

Brightness, somehow, even with his eyes closed. He opened them.

The tunnel was a brighter area within an expanse of haze that was light and filled with a thick mist that felt both cold and warm, dry and moist, so dense that he saw only inches in front of him.

All of it bright. With that spot of brighter bright in front of him. Where the popping noises were.

He reached out, saw his hand before his eyes, details obscured by the haze.

The hand gave a small sense of scale, putting an object between him and the orb of brighter light, which seemed now like a searchlight in the fog, somewhere in the distance.

It was too far away to touch. He’d need to approach. Which meant he would have to stand.

His hand went down, to push himself up, and sank into a doughy, airy surface.

Then he was downtown. Shops, boutiques, cafes. A bright day, the sky a pure, blazing, Florida blue. C.C. wore sunglasses. She was laughing, and he wondered why. On his arm. Saying something.

His hand slid forward in the dough. The mist tickled his cheek. The light was before him.

My God! What—

A flea market, off U.S. 98, outside Pensacola on the way to Destin. A big, permanent setup with open-air shelters shading row after row of vendor tables. The musty smell of twenty-year-old toys and