Julio held the blade out as he’d seen his father do, his hand shaking so much he thought he’d drop it. But, he didn’t. He swung it down and struck the second man, hitting him in the shoulder, down to the bone. The scream covered Julio’s arms in goose bumps.
‘Again!’ said Emilio. ‘Quickly.’
Julio did as he was ordered. The blade flashed again, this time finding the man’s neck, but hardly going through. The man tried to stand and run, but one of Emilio’s men stuck out his leg and tripped him. As the man rolled on the ground, the bandana covering his eyes came off, and he looked up at Julio, his eyes pleading, blood streaming from his neck.
Emilio came over and squatted next to the man. He pointed at the man’s throat with his index finger. ‘Right across here, Julio,’ he said, as if teaching his son how to cut firewood. Julio brought the blade down again. And again. It took several chops through bone and sinew to completely sever the man’s head.
Julio turned, fell to his knees, and vomited. When he was able to stand up, one of the men assisted him and handed him a bottle of tequila. Julio took it and rinsed his mouth, then took another swallow that burned all the way down and filled his head with fire.
They had pulled the last man out of the van and placed him on his knees in the condemned man’s position. He sobbed quietly.
Emilio looked at Julio and said, ‘Again.’
Julio teetered over; sure he could neither raise the blade again, nor swing it hard enough to do what had to be done. But, the look on his father’s face, the sneer, the disgust of having such a weak offspring, was so apparent, he did not have to hear the words. He found an anger inside himself, let it rise to a boil, and placed himself behind the man. This time, he raised the blade above his own head with both hands and, when he came back down, arcing it to the side, he put his weight into the swing. The blade was getting dull now and once again, it did not go all the way through. But, as the man fell to his side, Julio dislodged the blade, and without being coaxed this time, he swung it down again and again, until the man’s head rolled off.
Emilio nodded to the other men and, without words, they took chainsaws from the van and cranked them up.
Julio wondered why they had not used the chainsaws in the first place then realized it was probably because his father wanted him to ‘work’ through his emergence as a killer. Now, he felt the transformation within himself and knew at that very moment he would never be the same. But, he would also never be like his father.
One of his father’s men – a man whom Julio had heard being referred to as El Monstruo, The Monster – dismembered the bodies with the chainsaw and placed them in black plastic bags. He was a frightening presence, as wide as he was tall. His eyes were as black and lifeless as a shark’s, set into acne-scarred skin. His other facial features were blunted and slightly out of place, as if the sculptor who moulded him left him in the kiln too long. His mouth hung open as if his nose did not take in air. As toad-like as he looked, his hands moved quickly with saw and blade; an efficient and experienced butcher. Once in bags, the parts were then placed into wooden shipping containers that, Julio later learned, to his horror, were shipped back to the dead men’s families.
Emilio put his arm around his son’s shoulders, grinning as if his son had just scored the final goal at the World Cup, and said, ‘Okay. Now, you are a man. Let’s get cleaned up. Those lusty whores in the house want more of you, I’m sure.’ He beamed proudly as he said this, but Julio did not. Sex was absolutely the last thing on his mind at that moment.
It was Sara Logan on the phone. ‘Good morning,’ she purred.
Despite everything, his heart crept into his throat. ‘Are you here?’ he croaked. ‘I mean, at the hotel?’
‘No,’ she answered. ‘Still at the Gaylord Palms. We Feds like to stay at Marriotts. I keep the reward points and use them when I go on vacation.’
‘Since when do you take vacations?’
‘You’re always on vacation when you love your job.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’ Thiery rubbed his head, aching from lack of sleep.
‘You should come up. I’m sure it’s a wee bit nicer than your dive.’
Thiery ignored the invite. ‘I don’t know. This place is pretty sweet, if you don’t mind cockroaches.’
‘Eeeeyew,’ said Logan. ‘I’ve got a suite with a balcony overlooking a lake and a huge, very comfortable bed. I’m afraid I’ll get lost in it all by myself.’
Thiery shook his head. The girl didn’t give up. ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine.’ Changing the subject, he asked, ‘Anything new on your end?’
‘With the school shooting?’
‘Ye-es,’ he said, managing to make the word into two syllables.
He closed his eyes and could see her as clearly as if she were still in the bedroom they shared years ago. Still standing in front of the window at her little fuck pad in Ormond Beach, pulling her then shoulder length hair up into a ponytail, the sweat of their exertions still glistening on her dark skin.
‘I talked to the ATF agents last night,’ she answered, a noticeable shrug in her voice. ‘There’s nothing for them here, so they’re popping smoke and gone. Like you said – all amateur stuff on the explosives – probably couldn’t get them to detonate without attaching a grenade. We’ve got Coody’s hard drives. We overnighted them to our lab rats. I’ve got some people chasing down the numbers on the Weisz gun. So far, nada. And I’m collating a list of guns that the shooters had on them, and in their vehicle, and I’ll run that through our database as soon as I can. My boss told me to stick around to represent our bureau and assist your department as needed. So, if you need forensic or lab work, or just old fashioned … leg work … ’
Thiery again ignored her sexy punning.
‘So, how are you?’ Logan finally continued. ‘The boys doing well?’ she asked, straining to make personal conversation.
‘Grown and out of the house now. You still married?’
She hesitated. ‘Afraid so.’
He could have asked, ‘why so glum?’, or lent her a consoling ear, but he didn’t. He heard a click on his phone, glanced at the incoming call, but didn’t recognize the number.
Logan asked, ‘Is that your phone missing a beat or mine?’
‘Mine,’ he said. ‘Let’s touch base later, okay?’
‘Sure,’ said Logan. ‘And hey, thanks for not being a dick to me.’
Thiery clicked over to the second call without comment.
It was Chief Dunham. ‘She’s gone,’ he said, dolefully.
‘Who?’ asked Thiery, wide awake now.
‘The wounded teacher: Erica Weisz.’
‘She died?’
‘No, sir. She’s just … gone. Left without checking out. I got a call from the Sheriff’s office this morning. The hospital called them late last night.’
‘Why did they wait so long to notify you?’
‘Not sure. They had a deputy watching her last night, but he’s a young guy and got distracted. Stepped away for a minute. They looked around the hospital for a couple hours, but couldn’t find her, so they just wrote it up as a missing witness wanted for questioning. She hasn’t been gone for twenty-four hours, and