Hair of the Dog by Gordon Carroll (reading strategies book TXT) 📗

sometimes getting your heart to come around to your brain’s way of thinking is hard, especially when you keep seeing a little girl’s tears running down her cheeks and hearing her cries in your ears.

23

Jerome started stealing cars at nine and he’d done nothing but improve his skills since then. He could get into and steal almost any vehicle in less than three minutes. He wasn’t pretty and finesse was never his forte. Jerome utilized a combination of brute force and unfailing nerves.

The 2010 Nissan Sentra, with its light blue fading paint, would draw no attention, even sitting across from the Aurora Police Station and Court House. His plan was simple, like most, only he didn’t realize that his usually trustworthy sense of tactical brilliance was being compromised by his emotions. He checked to make sure the gun held a round by pulling back slightly on the slide and seeing the back casing shining out at him. He only had the one gun, but he planned on taking more from the cops he would kill. He waited, his usual patience not working like normal. His leg kept bouncing up and down and his hands clenched over and over. He had to shake his head every few seconds to get Clair’s face out of his head. He kept seeing her being carried away, crying out for him…and the white man holding her, the dog by his side.

The steering wheel creaked and groaned beneath his tightening grip and he had to shake his head brutally to stop himself from getting out of the car, rushing inside and killing everyone he saw. Of course that was pretty much his plan anyway, but he had to wait for a lull. It wouldn’t help Clair to get shot to pieces before he even made it to her. There were cops everywhere, but he would have the element of surprise on his side. That and the inherent chaos that would follow his first shots. The possibility she wasn’t in there never entered his one-track mind. She was there…he could feel her. And he would make them pay. He would take her and they would be like before. He would protect her. He would save her.

Tears leaked from his eyes. He couldn’t seem to stop crying.

Jerome took a deep breath, let it out, took hold of the door latch.

Stopped.

The white man that stole his baby was standing on the steps talking to a fat black man.

The tears stopped.

Jerome’s leg stopped bouncing, his fingers perfectly still.

He watched as they shook hands. The black man walked back up into the building. The white man went to a black Escalade. Jerome saw the dog watching him from the back window. They were across the street and the window was only down a little, but Jerome saw the dog watching him. It had the same look in its eyes that Jerome saw staring at him in the bathroom mirror a few hours ago.

Good.

For just a second, Jerome thought the dog would somehow tell the man he was here and the battle would begin. But of course dogs couldn’t talk to people, even Jerome knew that, and the man drove out of the parking lot and headed west on Colfax.

Jerome followed.

Without him even realizing it, his plans had changed.

Jerome drove past the driveway, well back from the Escalade. He traveled up a ways before making a “U” turn and driving back. He saw the mailbox at the end of the winding asphalt. He went back up the road till he found a little turn-around and parked.

Clair’s sleeping face floated behind his eyes, her little thumb stuck in her mouth. He smelled her breath, felt the warmth on his cheek, twirled her curls between his fingers.

Murder welled up inside his heart. Deep and dark and hard.

The white man’s face replaced Clair’s and he could almost feel the man’s throat between his fingers. The white man would know where Clair was and how to get her and Jerome would make him tell.

A few cars swished past as the sun worked its way behind the swelling mountains to the west. The low breeze picked up a little, turning from hot to not quite so hot, but not yet cool. The day sounds were slowly changing to night sounds, but not the night sounds of Chicago. Jerome had come to enjoy Colorado, with its lack of screams and shooting his native city offered. Colorado’s night sounds were subtle. Crickets, cicadas, bats flapping and insects buzzing. Up here, even the subdued city sounds of Denver were obscured so that nature truly took over. It felt nice, peaceful.

What Jerome was about to do was not peaceful, but he was at peace with it. He would torture the white man, then he would kill him and then he would go get his baby.

Looking up toward the hog back the white man had driven up, Jerome saw pine trees and aspen and lots of others he didn’t recognize.

Once the sun was fully down, and the headlights of cars below had slowed to about one every ten minutes or so, Jerome got out of the car and started up the long, twisting driveway.

The gun in his hand.

24

While Gil and Jared were still speaking outside the police station, Max smelled the enemy. The same man the Alpha fought and that he had tracked and attacked at the car. He stood up and looked out the window of the SUV parked in front of the Aurora Police Station. His nose caught the man’s spore as it drifted about on the wind. His incredible brain worked in concert with the millions of scent receptors sprinkled throughout his muzzle and sinuses to exclude other scents while honing in on his prey. People were everywhere, exuding sweat, smoke, gas, carbon dioxide. Cars, trucks and buses zipped along, spewing exhaust, kicking up dust, muddying air currents. Trees and plants and insects added their own deposits. Max sifted through them all until he locked