Accidents Waiting to Happen (46 page)

The professional smiled.
 
In a bizarre twist, the killer was touched that so many would turn out for this occasion.
 
He had always thought he would die alone, without a friend or foe present.

“I want you to know my name,” the professional said.
 
The blood in his throat made speech difficult.

“I didn’t think it was James Mitchell.
 
But tell it to someone who gives a shit,” Josh said.
 

Michaels’ lack of interest hurt the hit man.
 
Seeing the gun being raised, he feared Michaels would shoot him before he got the chance to say his name.
 
He didn’t wait for an invitation.
 

“John Kelso.
 
My name is John Kelso.”
 
He blurted out his own name like a stoolpigeon under the bright lights of a cop’s interview room.

The murdered victims of John Kelso murmured his name amongst themselves.

“Jesus, is that important to you?” Josh asked.

Kelso swallowed and tasted his blood running back down his nose.
 
“Yes.”

Michaels snapped his head away from Kelso and out the window.
 
Police sirens filled the air with their wail.
 
Their sound was muted by distance, but it wouldn’t be long before their arrival.
 
Neighbors must have called them during the gunplay.

Michaels, panicked by the sound of approaching police cars, lost his hardness.
 
He recognized time was running out.
 

“Tell me, did you tamper with my plane?” he demanded.

Kelso glanced at Keegan at the forefront of the crowd.
 
“Yes, I did.”

Michaels drew in a deep breath and exhaled, closing his eyes momentarily.
 
“I wish I could kill you all over again.”

Slowly, Kelso’s victims became more solid and Josh Michaels and the house took on a hazy quality.
 
Kelso knew his time was running out.

The sirens grew louder.
 
Michaels made for the front door.
 
Kelso grabbed his leg.
 
Josh stopped and looked down at him.

“Say my name,” Kelso commanded.

“Fuck you,” Michaels spat.

“Say my name and I’ll tell you something you should really know.”

“Like what?”
 

“Say my name,” Kelso insisted.

Michaels hesitated.
 
The sirens were close now, too close for comfort.
 
“Okay.
 
John Kelso.
 
Your name is John Kelso.
 
Now tell me.”

“You can’t save them.
 
You’re too late.”

“Save who?”
 
The puzzled look returned to Michaels’ face.

“Your family.
 
You can’t save them.”

Chapter Thirty-one

Josh’s blood froze.
 
His body became brittle—he would shatter at the slightest touch.
 
He refused to accept it.
 
Regardless of what Kelso said, it wasn’t too late.
 
He could still do something about it.
 
He kicked off Kelso’s grip on his leg.

“What have you done to Kate and Abby?”
 

The hit man laughed.
 
His eyes darted in all directions, focusing on nothing.
 
“You’re too late,” he said again.

“Don’t say that.”

Josh’s head swam in the confusion of the screaming sirens and Kelso’s boast.
 
The man was laughing at him.
 
His anger made him want to inflict a lifetime of pain on Kelso.
 
He wanted to make him sorry for the misery he’d caused him, his family, his friend and Bell.
 
The sirens sounded like they were outside the door.
 
There was no more time.

“Are they still alive?”

“They won’t be when you get to them.”

“What does that mean?”

Kelso shook his head and laughed.
 
Josh knew he wasn’t going to get any more from the hit man.

“Time for a taste of your own medicine,” Josh said.

Josh put out his arm with his thumb up and gradually turned his arm.
 
When his thumb pointed down, Josh shot Kelso in the face.
 

John Kelso laughing stopped.

***

Josh tore out of the house, the gun still in his hand.
 
Faces at the windows of the neighboring houses peered through curtained windows.
 
He leapt into the car, throwing the gun into the passenger side foot well.
 
Police cars approached from both ends of the street, still several hundred yards off in the distance.
 
He roared off in his car, not bothering to turn on his lights.
 
He turned left into a small residential street without stopping at the four-way stop.
 
It was a minor diversion that would slow his journey by moments, but he would avoid the cops.
 

He checked his mirrors and was relieved to find no police cars in pursuit.
 
Josh made a turn onto another street and he saw a speeding squad car tear across the next intersection heading for Bell’s house.
 
He was clear of them.
 
The cops wouldn’t be knocking at his door, well for awhile anyway.
 
Neighbors probably had his license plate number and his fingerprints were all over the house.
 
It wouldn’t take them too long to track him down.

His return journey home was more frantic than the road race to Bell’s.
 
Josh drove more recklessly and more dangerously to himself and to others.
 
With what was at stake, he had no choice.
 
His family’s safety was paramount.

What has Kelso done?
 
How has he gotten to Kate and Abby?
 
They were questions he could only guess at with a deep-rooted fear that scared him.
 
He would never forgive himself if they were killed as a result of his mistakes.
 
His fear and loathing tasted sour in his mouth.

Although Josh reached speeds of eighty miles an hour in some places on the residential roads, it was still too slow.
 
Light speed would have been too slow for him.
 
He didn’t know how much time his family had before it was too late so every second counted.

He turned into his street.
 
The car slewed across the road, the back end threatened to overtake the front.
 
Rubber shredded off the tread as the tires squealed in pain.
 
He raced up to his house and stamped on the brakes.
 
The car ground to a halt in his neighbor’s front yard after plowing two wild furrows with its wheels.

Kate’s minivan was parked outside.
 
It meant they were inside, or so he hoped.
 
If they weren’t, he didn’t have a clue where they could be or have a hope in hell of finding them.
 
Josh had put a bullet through the face of the only man who knew where his wife and child were.
 
He should have brought the hit man with him.

Josh reached for the gun in the foot well.
 
His reckless driving had tossed it around inside.
 
Blindly, his hand leapt from place to place in the car’s darkened interior.
 
The vapor lights provided poor illumination for the vehicle’s cabin.
 
His hand found the bulky steel lump under the front passenger seat and his fingers wrapped around the weapon.
 
He burst out of the car.
 

“Please be okay.
 
Please be okay,” he chanted.

Josh tried opening the door, but it was locked.
 
He fumbled in his pockets for his key and cursed when he realized his keys were still in the car.
 
He tore back to the car and yanked them out of the ignition, almost snapping the ignition key off.

“Kate, Abby,” he bellowed.
 
“Are you okay?
 
Answer me, it’s important.”

Running back to the door, he searched for the door key, finger dexterity impaired by the cumbersome pistol in one hand.
 
Finding the key, Josh jammed it into the lock, twisted it and threw himself against the door.

The explosion tore the house apart.
 
The blast blew windows outward, scattering glass far and wide.
 
Flaming wood shake was projected high into the air, imprinting the sky with comet-like heavenly bodies.
 
Lengths of siding snaked across the neighborhood like balloons inflated then released.
 
The concussion spat the house contents into the street.
 
The garage door shoved Kate’s minivan aside and embedded itself in an SUV, three houses down the street.

The sound, although deafening, was impressive—orchestral in nature.
 
The blast’s thunderclap was interlaced with shattering glass.
 
Glass fragments tinkled on the road surface like waves crashing on shingle.
 
Burning shakes thudded into lawns like Derby runners approaching the first furlong.
 
Crackling house materials rounded out the symphony when it was all over.

Neighbors already awakened by Josh Michaels’ dramatic arrival had time to witness his house being torn asunder in a spectacle of color and sound.
 
The price of admission was expensive.
 
Neighboring homes had their windows blown in and debris burned on their lawns.

Josh was flung into the air, protected from projectiles, the blast, and the heat by the door ripped off by the explosion.
 
He landed in the front yard with the door on top of him. He kicked off the door and got to his feet.
 
He ignored the ringing in his head and the aching in his bones.

Hearing and feeling the blast was no preparation for what he saw.
 
His home was a burning skeleton—every single part was aflame.
 
Nothing and no one could have survived that.
 
It struck him.
 
His family was dead.
 
He dropped to his knees, his hands to his head, the gun in his right hand pressed up against his ear.

“They’re dead.
 
I’ve killed them,” he screamed above the roar of the fire.

***

For several moments, Josh was alone in the street.
 
None of his neighbors ventured from the boundary of their homes.
 
The event was too astounding.
 
Exploding houses didn’t happen here.
 
Eventually people appeared and gathered into groups discussing the occurrence.
 
No one approached Josh.
 
Everyone kept a healthy distance from the blaze and the homeowner with the gun.
 
Even from the other side of the street the flames dried the skin on their shocked faces.
 
God alone knew what perils lay ahead for any person who went near the catastrophe.

Josh knelt on his scorched lawn unable to come to terms with the meaning of the disaster.
 
The people he cared most about, Kate and Abby, were dead because of him.
 
It didn’t matter what he did to improve his plight.
 
He had now suffered the worst kind of punishment.
 
If he had let it happen, let Kelso kill him, maybe his family would be alive—maybe a lot of people would be alive.
 
But there wasn’t much point to
if
; there wasn’t much point to anything anymore.
 
Everything he held most dear was gone.
 
Josh raised the pistol to his temple.

The blaze-watching crowd gasped at their neighbor with a gun to his head.
 
What were things coming to, was their neighborhood going to hell?

A car screeched to a halt behind Josh.
 

“Josh!
 
Put the gun down.”
 
Bob Deuce flew out of the car.

Josh ignored the shouts and closed his eyes.
 
The flames were so strong that even through his eyelids, red and yellow images danced before him.
 
He took a deep breath and held it.
 
He tightened his finger around the trigger.