Blood Abandon (Donald Holley Book 1) (6 page)

I leaned back on my bed and passed out.

***

I rode my bicycle along the edge of the creek, the path beaten down from the trips Bit and I had made many a time. I looked over my shoulder and saw him coming up behind me, his hair blowing in the wind, and wide smile worn across his face. He was laughing; I pedaled as hard as I could to stay in front. The warm summer air drew streams of sweat down my forehead into my eyes, and down my cheeks, but I hardly noticed. The sun cast streaks of yellow light in downward stabbing slants between the trees; it was the type of day I wished every day could be. I followed the stream edge for a shorter period of time than it seemed until I came to where three streams converged and a sizeable pond sat, muddy in color. I hopped off of my bicycle, and Bit was behind me, popping his kickstand in short order. We sprinted over to the pond’s edge, and picked up the fishing rods we had left there the afternoon before. I pulled the new Styrofoam container from my engorged shorts pocket and opened it, each of us drawing forth a purple, sizeable and dirt-covered night crawler.

After baiting our hooks and casting our rods, we sat watching the red and white plastic bobbers floating gently on the surface, hoping to see the downward jerking motion, a true sign of the nibble from below. Several minutes went by as we sat in silence, then Bit spoke.

“Donnie, why is daddy like he is?” he asked me.

I looked over at him, considering his blackened right eye. I had no answer for him that
would satisfy his young mind, as I didn’t have one that gave me that satisfaction either.

“I don’t know, Gerald. He loves us, though, I know that. He just can’t always show it,” I said.

Gerald nodded his eight-year old head, as though this made some sense, but not enough.

“He really hurt me last time.” He looked down at his lap.

“I know, G. I know.” I put my arm around him. “He hurts me, too.”

Gerald said nothing, and I thought I saw a tear form at the corner of his eye, and roll down his red cheek. “I just don’t understand,” he said.

“I don’t either, G, but I will promise you this: I will never hurt you.”

“You promise, Donnie?” he asked, truly, deeply.

I grabbed him by his chin, and made him meet my eyes. “As your big brother, I promise you.”

He smiled, and wiped the wetness from his cheek.

“I love you, Donnie. I always will. And I’m sorry for this…”

I looked down at my chest, the blood pooling in my lap, pouring from my chest. I dropped my fishing rod, stood up and stumbled back, looking wide-eyed at my young brother, the knife in his hands-

I bolted upright, sweating heavily, feeling my chest and stomach. The dream was heavy; it was something real from our past. A heart wrenching promise one little boy had made to his brother in an impossible situation. The only difference between the dream and reality was that my little brother had promised me he would never hurt me, either. But sometimes life has a way of making you break promises. Things would never been the same again, so wavering on the future was of no good purpose.

It was time to go and find my little brother.

Chapter Ten

There wasn’t time to continue healing. I needed to begin my quest to find Gerald, and my first stop was a friend of mine from high school named Jim Haskins. Jim was the owner of a car dealership in Chapel Hill, and he had an interesting story. When he was still a salesman, he had been taken hostage by a serial killer while out on a test drive; the odds of something like that seemed small in a town as modest as Chapel Hill, but it had happened. The best part was he fought his way out of it, and had gained quite the macabre notoriety from it. He had written a book about the experience and used the proceeds to open his own dealership. He didn’t seem to mind talking about it as it helped him to sell cars. Since my Tahoe had not turned up, I was in need of another vehicle. I met him at his new lot which he had purchased about six months ago.

He greeted me out front when my taxi dropped me off.

“Donnie, nice to see you again.”  He grimaced slightly. “It’s been a while. I’m sorry to hear of your recent troubles,” he said. He didn’t know what I really did for a living, of course, but he had heard about what had happened to me.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m getting back on my feet. Now I just need a new vehicle,” I said, smiling.

“I think we can take care of that,” he said.

Two hours later, I was on the road in my new vehicle. It was a 2013 Toyota Tundra double-cab dealer demo that he had purchased at auction, and it only had forty-three hundred miles on it. It was a beautiful truck; black metallic exterior with black and gray leather inside. It was fully loaded, with the windows lightly tinted, and for me, it was perfect.

I drove out to the climate-controlled storage unit near Raleigh-Durham airport that I rented. This was the spot I kept all of my equipment and supplies for any work I would need to accomplish in North Carolina. As I had mentioned earlier, being a convicted felon made it very important to keep my guns and other supplies out of the eyes of law enforcement officials. I didn’t want an automatic five years just for holding a gun at the wrong time.

I drove down the long rows of units until I came to the one I rented. It was a pretty large unit, approximately forty-eight by forty-eight, and it held everything I needed. All of my local firearms, knives, information-extraction tool kits, several power tools, several large plastic fifty-five gallon drums, and a host of chemicals were held here. If the cops ever did get ahold of this, I was certainly
toast. I did my best to keep it under the radar, renting it under a false identity and paying in cash, which the owner was happy to do and look the other way as I payed him more than the monthly rent he asked for. This had provided me the necessary level of autonomy that I had needed to go about my business for a number of years.

I collected a number of handguns, some with silencers, a couple of knives, and large zip ties and a medium grade rope, and put them into a large black duffel bag. I shut the unit, locked it and loaded the bag into my passenger side floorboard. As I made my way back around the truck,
I sensed someone there. I spun around quickly to find a man standing there in an unflashy, clean dress suit. I had never seen him before, but I instantly knew where he was from.  He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, clean shaven and close cropped hair. He had his hands clasped behind him. I looked around, and saw he was the only other person immediately present. I didn’t bother asking who he was or he had found me. He worked for the same people I did.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“Number twenty-six, you have been out on your own for quite some time, now,” the man said. “A month without contact is too much.”

I nodded. “I was-

He cut me off with a wave of his hand. “We know all about what happened with you and your brother, number twenty-six. There is no need to explain.”

He reached in his pocket and extracted a cell phone. “This is your new phone.
Same as last time. One number; work only. Understand?”

I nodded.

“We have work lined up for you. But we also know that you need to address the situation with your brother before you will be ready, mentally.”

“I can work,” I said.

“No, you can’t. You won’t be prepared.” He stared directly in my eyes. “Besides, look at you now. I know what you are doing. You have one thing on your mind. You must attend to that, first.” He extracted a piece of paper from his pocket. “And we are going to help you with that, as a show of good faith.” He walked over and handed me the cell phone and paper.

“On that paper is an address. At that address you will find your brother.”

I had to ask. “How did you find him?”

“Number twenty-six, we have eyes and feet everywhere. After your inbound call, shortly before this, the wheels were set in motion.”

“I see.”

“Before I go, let me make something clear. You almost died because you let emotion get in the way of your decision making. You didn’t see that until it was too late. You let a phone with a lot of sensitive information on the SIM card fall potentially the wrong hands. We were able to track it down, but to repeat this scenario would be a fatal mistake going forward. Do you understand?”

I nodded. “I do.”

“Remember this: Gerald Holley is your brother by blood. But he is no longer your brother.”

“I understand.”

The man nodded at me, in turn. “You have two days, and then you will receive a call. It needs to be finished by the time you receive the call.” He turned and walked away, between rows of storage units. It almost felt like I was imagining things, but I looked down at the phone and piece of paper in my hand and knew that I wasn’t. The address was across the country; I turned and put the bag of equipment back in the storage unit. I had a safe deposit box in the city in which I was headed. The only thought on my mind was that I had forty-eight hours to finish the worst part of my life.

Chapter Eleven

I regrouped and prepared at my house; I showered, dressed, ate something and did some research on the address. It was in West Hollywood, California. I wasn’t sure if he had driven my Tahoe there, or flew, but my guess was that he had been able to get the safe opened, put the money in a bag, and headed west. I wasn’t aware of anyone he knew out there; I could only imagine what he could be doing. I decided to make a phone call.

Several rings in, Gerald’s former wife Kate picked up. “Hello?”

“Kate, its Donnie. How are you?”

“Oh, Donnie, it’s nice to hear your voice.” She sighed heavily.
“Gerald told me you had been shot, and I came to see you in the hospital, but you were under sedation. I’m so sorry. Are you out now?”

“I am. I didn’t know you had visited. Thanks for coming by,” I said.

“Of course. I was very sorry to hear it.”

I changed gears. “Speaking of Gerald, have you seen him in a while?”

“Only once, a few days after you got attacked. He came by, said he got a temporary job and would be traveling for a while.”

“Did he leave anything with you?”

“What?” She sounded confused. “Like what?”

“Did he give you guys anything before he left?” I asked.

“No.” The confusion was clear now. “Was he supposed to?”

“No, not really.
I just wondered if he did.” I had to think of something quick. “I had asked him to give Marie a teddy bear I had gotten for her a while back on a trip. He must have forgotten.”

“Oh. Yeah, he didn’t bring anything with him.”

“Okay, Kate. Thank you. I gotta run. I’ll talk soon. Tell Marie I said hello.”

“Okay Donnie, I will. Talk to you later. Glad you are healing up.”

“Thank you. Talk to you later.”

I hung up the phone, and any possible indecision I had was gone. I was more disgusted by whatever he was doing with the money than what he had done to me. I understood violence; that part made some sense to me. But I couldn’t see abandoning your daughter further when you had a chance to do something good for her. Marie and her mother Kate wouldn’t have needed to know the money was taken from me; he could have told them anything and they wouldn’t have been the wiser. Instead, he headed west, leaving them to struggle. 

The future became sharper moment by moment.

***

My flight touched down at Los Angeles International Airport at five a.m. the following morning. Fortunately, I had been able to get some sleep on the late night flight. The only luggage I had was a small carry-on with two sets of clothes, so I was out of the airport quickly. I passed through the exit doors and the warm California air hit my skin, the lack of humidity refreshing. While it was cold still in North Carolina, it was always warm here; I silently marveled at that. The rush of cars and voices was like a blanket; I stood and took everything in for a moment. I went and found my rental car, a Ford Focus, and hopped on the interstate toward Hollywood.

The safe deposit box was at an investment company off of La Cienega Boulevard. I went to my hotel, the Comfort Inn on Sunset Boulevard, and checked in to kill time before I could get to the box. The investment company was very private, and didn’t have the safeguards most banks had. It was easier to get out of there with a bag of guns than your typical bank, for example. It had served me perfectly for a number of years while on business in Los Angeles. Nobody ever paid any attention, so I was able to be in and out effortlessly as I pleased.

At nine a.m., I went and retrieved my supplies from the safe deposit box. Inside were two firearms, another SIG Sauer P220 with a silencer, and a small .20 caliber handgun. I also took
the Defender hunting knife, which was a mean looking seven-inch blade, a portable GPS system, a set of binoculars, and two-thousand dollars in cash. I laid everything in a briefcase and took it back to the Comfort Inn.

I spent the better part of the afternoon resting. I was still very sore, and at times, weak. Around four p.m., I went to the rental car, plugged in the address on the GPS, and did a test pass on the location where my brother was supposed to be located. I tried not to think of what the future held in that moment; I just wanted to make everything as smooth as possible, to see the ins and outs, to visualize the way I would handle the task at hand this evening. This was different than how I normally completed a contract. Normally I had more time. Now, with the cross-country flight, I was limited to a day. It would be hard to limit the scope of everything that had transpired in my life between my brother and
I to a day, but the world was never intrinsically fair.