Beach Wedding(67)

I took in his easy physical confidence, his muscular hands. He wasn’t the tallest guy in the world, but he was wide and thickly muscled, and radiated health and vitality. He really did look like a killer, like a Marine. A finely tuned natural-born killer who, when he wasn’t running PT, was sharpening knives and oiling machine guns.

A professional, I thought, watching him smile as he blew another bubble.

The best money could buy.

“Can I ask you a question?” I said.

“Fire away.”

“How did you take out my father?” I said. “What did you do? Scuba dive over? Crack him over the head? Grab him while his back was turned? Hold him under until his lungs burst?”

“You think I killed your old man?” he said, squinting.

Then he leaned in over me until we were almost nose to nose. I could smell the gum in his mouth, see the flecks of amber in his crazy green eyes.

“You better believe I killed him,” he said, smiling. “I motored over to a couple of hundred feet astern of his rusty shit bucket and shot him in his thick Irish skull with a plastic baton round. You know, the kind they use to disperse crowds?”

I swallowed as a tear ran down along my nose.

“Hell of a shot, too. He went over like a duck in a carnival gallery right into the drink. Truly one for the scrapbook. Nothing like a baton round to the noggin to make it look like a slip-and-fall.”

He giggled.

“Just business, you know. Nothing personal. Now you know, you stupid little asshole. Happy? Or maybe not so much.”

More tears poured down my face silently. I balled my fists, put the sadness somewhere else, and brought my simmering rage right back.

“How about that innocent kid, Julian Sutton’s friend? Philip. You toss him off that building?”

“Oh, him,” the killer said, grinning some more. “Oh, yeah. He was my first toss-off. You never forget your first, you know? What’s funny, when he hit the concrete, I thought I’d hear like a splat, right? Nope. It didn’t sound like a person at all. Much louder. And crunchier. You know what young Phil sounded like when he landed? He sounded like a TV set somebody dropped out of a high-rise window. Who knew?”

His phone began to buzz. He chewed his gum as he looked at the message. Then he stood and came around behind me and unlocked the chair’s wheels and rolled me toward the rear of the bus.

“Is my family okay?” I said as he locked down the wheels again.

“Shhh. You just wait right here,” he said. “I know you’re a real unsolved mystery fan, so you’re going to like what’s coming up next.”

The second he closed the bus door behind him, I felt the panic well up. The airtight restraints didn’t budge a millimeter as I ripped at them as hard as I could. I tried rattling and rocking at the metal chair to knock it over, but it was impossible. It wouldn’t budge.

I was bathed in sweat, my arms and stomach muscles aching from still trying to free myself from the hellish steel chair five minutes later when the door opened.

My eyes flashed about as wide as they could go when I saw who it was.

What in the hell? I thought.

It was over somehow? The guy had left? I was saved?



93

“Courtney?”

“Hi, Terry,” Courtney Frazier said, closing the door behind her. “It’s not what you think,” she said quietly. “I’m not the cavalry.”

She walked over and sat across from me. She was wearing a sky blue athletic top with a short white sporty skirt.

Golf clothes? I thought.

She looked very prim and proper all of a sudden. Stuck up, in fact.

What in the hell was this?

“I guess there’s a few things you need to know now, Terry,” she said.

I looked closely at her. At her anchor babe white-blond hair. At her pretty eyes that were as blue as her top. I noticed a watch I hadn’t seen her wear before. It was a lady’s Cartier in stainless steel, shiny and bright against her tanned wrist.

Then I started laughing. I must have still been doped up a little because it wasn’t playacting for effect or something. I really cracked up.

“Yeah, I know. It’s a surprise,” she said.

“I don’t...” I said, still giggling. “I don’t know what to say. You’re in on this?”

“Stay focused, Terry,” she said quietly. “Your family’s life depends on it.”

That took the humor out of it. I blinked hard twice, trying to think clearly, get my emotions in check.

She tented her fingers in her lap.

“It was over, Terry. I had this so taken care of. But you had to do it, didn’t you? You did the one thing we were all trying to avoid.”

“What did I do?”

She glanced at her expensive watch, started playing with its diamond bezel nervously.

“You put those damn bullets into the NIBIN system,” she said. “Now look where you’re sitting. Now look what has to happen.”

“Enough with the bullshit! What the hell is all this?” I yelled.

Courtney sat up straighter and looked me in the eyes.

“Hailey Sutton had nothing to do with Noah’s death,” she said.

“Bullshit. Of course she did,” I said.

“She was set up, Terry. It was all a setup.”