An Unknown Place (19 page)

Mac

I had to work to open my eyes. They were scratchy and heavy. There was also a large marching band playing against my skull. I went to put my hands up to rub my eyes but they wouldn’t move. I tried with my other and realized my hands were tied down. I tried my feet, they wouldn’t move either. I finally focused on the little light that was in the room I sat in. There were little rays of light that helped but only minutely. I looked down at myself and saw something shiny on my sweater dress. If I had to guess, from the stickiness on my face and the dark color, it was blood.

I pulled against my restraints to no avail. He was a master at tying people down, apparently. I shouldn’t have been surprised by any of it. I worried about how many others he’d violated or killed since I’d been hiding. I should’ve pressed charges.

“I’ve kept tabs on you. I had a buddy of mine watching you. I was almost to the point of letting it go, satisfied you wouldn’t open your stupid mouth. You couldn’t just keep your
fucking
head down and leave it be, could you?” He was talking from somewhere, but I couldn’t place where.

“I haven’t told anyone what happened.”

Officer Cintas, wearing his uniform, emerged from the shadows with a black case and a gun in his hands. He pulled over an old wood work table, dropping the black case down onto it with a loud clatter. My nerves were shot, so I jerked at the noise.

“You fucking liar! That couple came in and filed a complaint on me today with Sergeant Ethan Bean. Bean should’ve never gotten that promotion over me,” Richard was talking to himself, but I had gotten the gist of what he was saying.

Ethan, Kellan’s best friend was Richard’s supervisor. No wonder Ethan had been so sure that the new supervisor would listen to what I had told him. I wondered if he’d filed the complaint and Richard just assumed it was Anna and Terry.

He flipped the black case open and I saw an array of sharp silver knives, most looking like shearing, cutting and wood working tools. I let a small cry escape me. Richard’s shining eyes cut to me, a sick smile spreading across his face.

“I did know Denise. She was my wife. Left me about a year ago. I borrowed her car after I shot her.” He shrugged like it was no big deal. “Figured she wouldn’t need it. She was a money grubbing bitch, but I loved her.”

The adrenaline had kicked in with the fear and I was shaking, my body not ready for what was coming.

“I’ve lost everything because of you. And now you will, too.
Slowly
.”

I lulled my head forward and let a few tears fall, then I made sobbing noises. I was crying but not really sobbing. I had to see how far I could reach my head forward without him knowing what I was doing. He was going to have to get close and personal to me with the tools he’d brought. There’d be no distance, this was personal for him – and me too, if I was being honest with myself. I promised myself I would be honest from then on if I got out alive.

I moved my hands again, but they wouldn’t move, legs, the same.

Richard picked up a scalpel from his collection.

“I always thought you’d be easy. You were young, no family, you always acted like you wanted it. I just did what you were silently asking me to do.”

He was solid in his conviction. He was also insane.

He cut through my dress with the scalpel he was wielding, leaving me exposed in nothing but my leggings and bra. I was filled with fear and regret. I would do anything to tell Kellan how I felt about him. He had been the only man, in my entire romantic life, to make me want to see to the end of the road. I had a rough background but I wanted so much more than the life I had trapped myself in. I wanted to live. I wanted to tell Kellan that I loved him, for everything he was and everything he could be.

“This is going to hurt.”

He sliced with ease through my leggings, into my leg. I watched as the scalpel disappeared into my leg and felt when it hit the bone. I didn’t feel anything at first. I watched numbly as the knife entered my skin. When I felt it, pain wasn’t the right word to describe the feeling. I grit my teeth together, biting through the end of my tongue. It felt like I was drowning in pain. I screamed through clenched teeth, spit flying. I looked at Richard and saw glee written all over him. Tears streamed down my face. I knew I was on my way out.

He pulled the scalpel out of my leg, giving me an instant of relief. I thought he would’ve given me more time to recoup, man was I optimistic. An instant later, I felt the knife slide into my upper arm and the lancing painful trail left behind as he filleted my skin open on the way down to my forearm. He left the scalpel behind in my forearm. I had felt him scrape the bone in several places. I knew there was damage done for the obvious reasons that I could see the blood, feel the pain, as well as the numbness of not being able to move my fingers or hand. I looked around wildly hoping to calm myself, but only finding more alarm in the surrounding darkness.

Kellan

My dad and Gin had been sitting for the past three hours talking in silent looks and waives of their hands, along with a few words here and there. I didn’t speak mobster but wish I’d learned. I had been sitting watching them and waiting for Ethan to call me. He had called every hour on the hour with updates. I hadn’t heard from him yet this hour and that made me very nervous.

“You look like you could use some food,” My dad pointed out. “Gin, run to the store and get some grub.”

Gin nodded and left my house without asking what I wanted. I figured it was just a way of giving my Pop and I a few minutes alone.

“I know what you’re thinking right now, and you can stop that. The kind of hate in this Cintas guy, it eats at you and eventually spills over. He won’t rush, we have some time,” My dad said, like I should be grateful.

“You’re not helping.”

My phone rang and I grabbed it off the kitchen table in front of me. Ethan’s name sat on the screen.

“Yeah?” I guess I wasn’t capable of more than one word at a time.

“Found a warehouse yard registered to Cintas’ ex-father in law. We also found Denise Cintas dead at Richard’s house.”

“Denise Cintas?”

“He killed his wife.”

Could the Denise that drugged me been married to Richard? Holy shit.
Holy shit
. I had to get to Mac yesterday.

“Did she have blonde hair? Good body, look like she rolled out of a magazine?”

“In completely superficial ways, yes.”

My brain was trying to climb its way out of my ears. I didn’t like Denise, but I didn’t want to see her dead. And if Richard Cintas was capable of killing a woman he’d been married to, Mac, the woman he’d raped, would be nothing.

“Where’s the warehouse?!”

“Right off of I-95.”

“Give me the Goddamn address!”

“I want to, but I can’t, Kellan, and you know it. I’ve already told you more than I should have.”

I hung up the phone before Ethan could say anything else.

I looked into my father’s eyes and saw understanding. The edge he always had because of how he’d lived his life was there, too, but he understood what I wanted and needed to do. My father’s phone rang and he answered it on speaker.

“Gin.”

“Ship My Crate is the name of the business. There are about ten warehouses and small shacks the father-in-law owns.”

“Yeah, Officer Bean called. Told Kel about the same thing.”

My father seemed to be waging an internal battle. I saw when he’d made his mind up.

“Give me the address,” He told Gin.

“3307 Rocky Wave Road.”

My dad hung his phone up.

“I’ll go with you, Kellan. Just let me take a leak and we’ll go.”

My dad got up from the table and went upstairs to use the bathroom. I heard the door shut and ran for my keys. I took off at a dead run to my car that was still sat at Freemont’s. I hadn’t had time to go pick it back up. I wished I had now.

I wasn’t trying to be a dick, but I couldn’t let my dad come with me. He had already put enough on the line when he’d come to see me at all. I didn’t want any more shit to rain down on my family. They were in the mob, but they were still my blood. I loved them. I’m sure my father felt the same way and would be pissed when he figured out I left without him but that I could handle.

I got to my car and shoved the keys in the ignition. I saw my dad come out of my front door and head toward Freemont’s. I took off before he could get ten feet away from my house.

I punched the address into the GPS app on my phone and drove at dangerous speeds. My phone told me I should be there in the next six minutes.

I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a black Lincoln following behind me. I was willing to lay money it was Gin.

My phone rang and I saw my dad’s name pop up on it. I didn’t answer his call. It rang again about a minute or two later, only this time it was Ethan. I answered for the simple fact that if someone had called in a dead body, and it was Mac, I needed to know.

“I just got the weirdest call from Carmine Freemont. He told me you’re headed somewhere you shouldn’t be.”

I stayed silent. I hadn’t lied to Ethan about anything important in the entire time we’d been friends.

“Kellan, snap out of it. You’re going to get you and her killed.”

“If she isn’t already.”

“Just wait for me. I’ll be there in a minute.”

I could hear the engine of his cruiser start. I hadn’t meant to pull everyone in around me when Mac had been taken from me, but I was glad I had them.

“Thanks. For everything, Ethan.”

“Kel –”

I hung up and pulled the GPS back up on my phone. I prayed to whoever was listening.

“Please, please let her be alive. Please let her be okay…”

I leaned over and pulled the gun I had stashed in my dash out, as well as the box of bullets.

“She’s the only one that’ll ever be worth it.”

As I drove and listened to my GPS tell me where to turn, I turned the safety of the gun off.

Mac

Richard had been slicing into me for what felt like forever. After the first round I’d blacked out from the pain. Now he knew what I could handle and was using the knowledge accordingly. He’d crushed my baby toes, on both feet, with a sledgehammer. At least I knew it was my baby toes he was aiming for, but I didn’t have the strength to wiggle my toes or move my feet anymore, he could’ve done much more damage than I knew.

The scalpel from the first session still protruded out of my arm. There was also two large-game fishing hooks, a shard of glass and a butter knife that had joined it. The fishing hooks he had hooked through the skin at my hips, with attached fishing line, he had pulled like he was trying to reel me in, and oh had he. I had moved a good foot toward him. I would never forget the pain he was inflicting. Even when I died. Optimistic? No. Realistic? Absolutely. He had sucked everything out of me, even the tiny shred of optimism that I’d barely had in the first place.

My eyes would barely open, so when I opened them, it was a feat. Richard was sitting in a chair across from me, sharpening what looked like a machete. I shivered a little. I had long ago gone into shock. I could feel my heart palpitating weakly. I wasn’t long for the tiny horrible world Officer Cintas had shut around me. His uniform was splattered and streaked with my blood. There was so much on him that I could only imagine what I looked like.

I couldn’t see behind me in the shadows but I had heard a car door open and shut and figured he’d pulled his car into this warehouse. I had heard water as well. We had to be close to water.

“Richard,” My voice croaked. But in the silence of the warehouse it was loud enough.

He looked at me. His eyes were black holes, sucking everything in around them. He was so different now than he’d been when I’d met him. I hated him more than ever.

“There is a special part of hell waiting for you. A place where everything you’ve done to others will be put back on you twenty times worse.”

I had thought this very thing many times in relation to Richard Cintas. It was amazing to say it to his face. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I knew I was going to die. I had come to terms with it. Or maybe my body was giving up and my brain was letting go.

Richard got up from his chair with the machete in hand and put the giant blade in my face. I didn’t have the energy to reel back.

“I’m going to take this blade and gut your two friends, Anna and Terry. And then I’m going to find your lesbian friend and the black one and torture them in some very
nice
ways. Then it’ll be Kellan Freemont’s turn…”

That repugnant smile was back on his face. I didn’t have to guess what kind of torture he had thought up for Lynn and Cam – they would face the same nightmares I was living. I was least worried about Anna and Terry and more worried about Lynn, Cam and Kellan.

What most didn’t know about Anna and Terry was that Terry was ex-military Special Ops and could kill a guy with his bare hands in under a minute. I had seen him break up enough bar fights in such a short time that bouncers were never needed at the bar. But not Kellan.

My heart squeezed and beat harder. It was beating harder than it had when I had the fish hooks pulling at my skin. I would never allow anything to happen to the people I loved. Not if it was within my power, whatever small amount I had left.

Kellan

When I pulled up to the front office of the warehouses on the docks, the booth that would normally house the security guard was empty. I drove through the wood arm that was supposed to keep intruders out. Let’s be honest, it was a courtesy arm. If a car wanted through, it was going to go through. And I wanted through.

I pulled toward the back of the lot, to the warehouses that sat closest to the water were lined up. The black Lincoln that had been following me on the highway pulled up behind me and parked. Gin got out, I owed myself five dollars.

“I was told to stick with you,” Gin said.

“And you did. But now’s the time to walk away. The cops can’t be too far behind us.”

“My loyalty is to your family.”

Another first for the day. It was the first time I’d respected and appreciated Gin’s involvement in mine and my family’s lives. I checked the bullets in the magazine of the gun and pushed the magazine in place. It was ready to shoot. I looked at Gin one more time and he nodded, pulling his own weapon from the holster under his suit jacket.

We’d only taken a few steps when I heard a scream. I don’t know how I heard it over the waves, but I had heard it and I ran toward it like a moth to the flame.

Mac

“You know, you were the worst lay I’ve ever had,” I said.

My only goal was for him to get close to me. I was hoping he wouldn’t just slice the blade across my throat and be done. He lowered the blade and placed it on the floor. That was good. At least, I thought it was good. He crouched down in front of me and lowered his face to my ear, rubbing his sweaty face on mine.

“Let’s have another go. I’ll
rock
your world.”

I pulled all my remaining strength together and threw my head at his. I heard a satisfying crunch that I assumed was his nose. I felt my chair going forward but luckily Richard’s foot hit the leg and toppled me sideways at the last second.

He had tied my hands high enough that my right hand was caught between the ground, the chair and my back. There had been enough weight to make something in my hand pop. I screamed a little at the pain. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling but nothing in comparison to the torture I’d been through. The hand that was trapped under me was also the one that I could move. I pulled with all I had and my hand came free. My arm was still trapped under the chair, though. Luckily, Richard decided to pull me up at that moment.

“You’re going to pay for that bitch.”

Richard came back up to a standing position with the machete hanging from the hand at his side.

This was my opening. The last one I would get. With more speed and strength than I thought I had left, I pulled the scalpel from my arm with my four still working fingers and sliced out to where his neck was. I saw a satisfying line of blood pour from his neck and him opening his mouth without any words. I dropped the scalpel to the floor with a clatter.

I watched as he dropped to his knees, looking as though he was trying to hold the wound at his neck closed. Behind Richard a door opened. The sun blinded me. I felt like I hadn’t seen the sun in days. When my eyes adjusted I saw the figure of two men, as well as the flash and boom of a gunshot.

Richard went all the way to the ground with a final spray of blood and a thud. I closed my eyes, satisfied I didn’t have to worry about Richard Cintas. With all the blood and no words coming out of him anymore I hoped he was dead or dying. Lord knew I was. For all I knew, I was dead or close to death and I was hallucinating the whole incident.

“Burn in hell, asshole,” I whispered.

I let the blood loss and pain carry me peacefully into comfortable darkness.