Home > Devil's Redemption (Devil's Pawn Duet #2)(59)

Devil's Redemption (Devil's Pawn Duet #2)(59)
Author: Natasha Knight

But my heart still races. I’m scared. Scared of what I may find.

I look around the street, see the few pockets of people, hear the sounds from inside other houses. Televisions, a dryer knocking against something as it spins, a woman yelling for her child to get inside. Without hesitating, I turn to walk up the driveway as if I belong here.

The garage door is open to about mid-thigh. It’s set farther back than the house. I walk straight up the driveway and when I get closer, I bend to peer inside. My heart rate triples, sweat running down the back of my neck.

It’s a white van. But it doesn’t have to be the van that almost ran me over.

Except that there are too many coincidences here.

I slip under the open door into the garage. The smell of gasoline and stale cigarette smoke is strong here. I walk around the driver’s side of the car. The window is open, and I peer inside to see the mess of old food containers, a packet of cigarettes on the dashboard, the butts and ashes of old cigarettes in the ashtray.

But it’s not any of those things that make me hug my arms around myself. It’s what’s hanging from the rear-view mirror. It gives me a flashback to that day. That moment when I waved to Angelique and turned to find the van coming at me, tires bouncing up onto the sidewalk as if the driver lost control, except that he hadn’t. I’d seen his face. His eyes. I’d just blocked it all out.

He hadn’t lost control.

He’d been coming at me.

And the ratty teddy bear hanging by a noose from his neck on the rear-view mirror had been the most horrific sight. A child’s toy, something meant to give comfort, treated in such a way. I remember it bouncing, hitting the windshield.

I need to get out of here. Clutching my purse to myself when the strap slides off my shoulder, I dig for the keys as I exit the garage.

I haven’t even straightened when I crash into something hard. Rough hands close over my arms to still me. And when I look up, it’s like I’m staring right into Danny Gibson’s eyes. Even though that’s impossible.

I see the flat nothingness I still remember. That abyss of emptiness.

And just like that night, my throat goes dry, and I can’t make a sound. Not even a squeak to call for help. I’m powerless. Just like that night.

 

 

44

 

 

Jericho

 

 

“He inside?” I ask Zeke as I walk up the drive to Jones’s front door. He lives a little over an hour out of town. Zeke is standing in the open doorway. Jones is the coroner who performed the original autopsy on Carlton Bishop and signed off on the cremation of the body.

“In his office.”

The door closes behind us and two men stand guard as I walk in, Zeke falling into stride beside me.

“I guess he’s not happy about that,” I say as we reach the study. Zeke has a man out here too.

“No. Apparently we interrupted a trip to the Bahamas.” Zeke finally caught up with Jones last night just as he was to board a private flight. He’d all but vanished off the face of the earth the last couple of days and I wondered if he hadn’t met with some terrible end at Julia Bishop’s hand.

“Was he alone?”

Zeke nods and opens the office door. “Not very chatty though, are you, doc?” he asks as we walk in.

Abe Jones is sitting on a straight back chair that looks like it was brought in from the dining room. His wrists are cuffed to the legs on either side of him. At his back stands yet another guard. He keeps his gaze on the wall behind us. These soldiers we hire are paid well for both their proficiency and their discretion.

“Were the cuffs necessary?” I ask Zeke. He’s in his mid-forties from the looks of him and although he appears fit enough, I have no doubt Zeke could take him. He’d probably enjoy it. Not to mention the men with guns if he somehow got past my brother.

Zeke shrugs his shoulder. “Flight risk. Wasn’t taking a chance.”

I chuckle. “And the black eye?”

Zeke grins. “That’s for wasting my time and sending me all over the fucking city looking for him, isn’t that right, doc?” he asks that last part with exaggerated drama.

“I will report you to The Tribunal as soon as I’m freed of these restraints. I will require the full extent of the penalty for what you’ve done.”

I raise my eyebrows and glance at Zeke. “Thought you said he wasn’t chatty.”

“Maybe he’s coming around,” Zeke says. He moves to sit behind the man’s desk and starts to look through the drawers.

I sit on the end of the coffee table facing Mr. Jones. I take in his disheveled appearance. He’s not a member of IVI but he is on their payroll. He comes from a long line of coroners and over time IVI has made use of his family’s services.

“I doubt The Tribunal would hear your argument, but you’re welcome to try,” I say, adjusting the collar of his shirt. “Take those off,” I tell the guard, gesturing to the cuffs.

“Yes, sir,” he says while Zeke tsks behind me. I hear the squeaking of the chair as he rocks back and forth on it.

Once Jones is freed, he rubs his wrists and I see the shiny Rolex on one. It’s possible it costs more than all the furniture in here combined.

“New?” I ask, gesturing to it.

He smiles, rubs off a smudge of non-existent dirt, then nods.

“It’s very nice. A gift from Julia Bishop?”

His face loses some color. “She was very grateful to have had me perform the autopsy on Mr. Bishop so quickly.”

“I bet. And what did she pay you to sign off on the cremation certificate?”

His eyes grow wider and skip around the room, settling on the door.

“Please do not make me have to chase you,” I say. “It’s been a long couple of days.” I stand up, stretch my arms, crack my knuckles.

“Have kids?” Zeke asks. He’s found a laptop and is punching something onto the keyboard.

“No,” Jones says, then shifts his gaze to me as I move behind Zeke to look at the screen.

“Girlfriend? A pet?”

Jones shakes his head.

“A goldfish maybe?”

“No.”

Zeke turns his head, shaking it. “Make this quick and give me the password, will you?”

“Why do you need it?”

“Curious how much you got paid for claiming a man died of a heart attack when he very clearly did not,” Zeke says.

Jones’s mouth falls open, any remaining color on his face disappearing. “What are you talking about? Carlton Bishop’s cause of death was cardiac arrest. I wouldn’t have lied about that. I could lose my license. Or worse.”

“Password,” Zeke says. When he doesn’t answer, Zeke gestures to the guard who just uncuffed him. He fists a handful of Jones’s hair and tugs his head back at such an awkward angle, the chair falls away and his spine is bent in way that makes even me wince.

“Mexico2020,” he rushes to say.

“Any capitals?”

“M. Just the M.”

Zeke types it in and voila, we’re in. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Zeke asks and finds the banking app.

I walk toward Jones, pick up the chair and nod for the guard to sit him on it. He does but keeps one heavy hand on his shoulder.

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