Page 94 of Menace
I sat in the silence for a while, counting the cracks in the ceiling. There could be a war coming, and for the first time in my life, I wasn’t just a weapon. I was the man who pointed it.
Outside, the sun was starting to sink. I zipped my jacket, checked my sidearm, and got on the road.
There was a job to do.
Dusk had already gone gray when I ditched the bike behind a patch of scrub brush, a mile out from the mark’s location. I walked the rest, boots silent on the powder dirt, the loaded 9mm bouncing against my ribs with each stride. The wind was sharp, dry, and full of the distant stink of livestock and burning mesquite. It felt like every molecule in the world was waiting for the next mistake.
The house sat on an acre of nothing, a white box with a black shingle roof and fake colonial shutters, the kind that always came pre-aged from a manufactured lot. This one had a deck built all the way around. The windows were shut, curtains drawn, but warm light leaked from the living room, a bad yellow that made my eyes ache. There was a single car in the gravel drive—a basic sedan, silver, with a vanity plate bracket for a college no one outside of Texas would recognize. I slid around the perimeter, eyes cataloging the vulnerabilities: one camera on the eave, a motion light over the porch, locks from the seventies. I’d seen harder targets at the Dairy Queen.
First move: kill the video. I dropped prone behind the back fence, rolled out the pocket laptop, and pinged the signal. The camera was live, but routed through a generic Chinese app, so it took two minutes to set a loop, twenty seconds to spoof the timestamp, and less than a breath to render the system blind to everything that mattered. I checked for other cameras on the network. Four pointed inside—living room, bedroom one, bedroom two, and the kitchen. Nobody home. All cameras looped for the same twenty seconds.
I put the laptop away, slid on my leather gloves, and eased up to the kitchen door. It was locked. I picked it in less than a minute, the rattle of tumblers as easy as flipping a light switch. I ghosted inside and closed the door behind me.
The kitchen was immaculate. No dishes, no stains, nothing in the sink but the silver gleam of the garbage disposal mouth. The only clue that anyone lived here was a single mug by the coffeemaker. I palmed it, checked the lipstick, and put it back exactly where it was.
I moved room by room. The living room was a catalog spread: mid-century couch, a rug that probably cost more than my first car, everything arranged with obsessive symmetry. The TV was wall-mounted; the remote nested perfectly parallel to a paperback book on the glass coffee table. I flipped the book open—no annotations, but the title was some kind of stalker romance. I scanned a few pages. Wow. Dark shit.
I ventured into the first of the two bedrooms. Looked like a guestroom, barely slept in, a hospital-cornered twin bed and a bookshelf full of more questionable romance novels. I pulled one and found lots of dog-eared pages. My eyes scanned a few paragraphs that contained some fucked-up shit. I put the book back, stifling a laugh.
The main bedroom was next. The bed was made, the closet open. No men’s clothing, no shoes larger than a size seven. I touched the hangers, let my fingers glide across little black dressesand a variety of concert t-shirts. Some brands were everyday wear, some were high end—Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein, a few pieces with French names I couldn’t pronounce. I checked the dresser, finding nothing but folded lingerie, all black or red, and a collection of silk scarves. I looked under the tray of jewelry—no gun, no drugs, just a box of business cards from banks and title companies in Amarillo.
The nightstand was more interesting. Second drawer: two paperback romance novels with the spines broken and a dog-eared page in each. Beneath, a baggie with a spare key and a prepaid Visa. At the bottom, a small zippered pouch with a high-dollar pink cordless dildo. In another velvet pouch, a silver butt plug with a jeweled heart at the top, a bottle of lube, and a small black notebook with an elastic band.
I pocketed the notebook. If it turned out to be a sex journal, it’d be the second-most embarrassing thing I’d read tonight.
Last, the office area. The desk was spotless, but the desk calendar was full of names and numbers, each scribbled in a different colored pen. I used my phone to photograph each page, then searched the desk for a laptop. Not here. She must have it with her.
I went back to the kitchen. I was about to leave when I saw, pinned to the fridge by a smiley-faced magnet, a cheap five-by-seven photo in a plastic frame. The kind you’d get at a fair.
Four people in the photo: a man, grinning like he was about to kill the cameraman; a woman in a pastel dress; and two teenagers—a boy and a girl, almost identical except for the length of the hair. The boy was Axel Reid and the girl, his twin sister, fucking Parker.
The Reids were Iron Valor Pack until Valorie and Roger died in a car accident several years ago. Tragic. We stood by their kids Axel and his fucking twin sister, Parker. Took care of them. Axel handled the books at Bronc’s shop for two years while Parkerwent to college. She graduated, and they both decided to leave the pack. Gotta do research to see where they supposedly went.
Fucking traitors.
A car crunched onto the gravel outside. I blinked the sweat from my eyes, shoved the photo back, and headed to the back door as her feet hit the front porch. I heard the front door lock code beep as I let myself out.
I’d put on the mask I used anytime I needed to conduct any kind of stealthy shit. Black with creepy as fuck white eyes and mouth. Wearing black from head to toe, there was no way she could identify me. I fucking wanted the bitch to see me.
She turned on the back porch lights and pulled back the curtains on the large picture window so she could check the back deck and yard. That’s where I waited just off to the side. Then she turned out the lights, and I took a step directly into her line of sight. Mother fucking fuck. She was gorgeous as she stood frozen, with a look of terror on her face when she saw me standing just feet away from her on the other side of that window. My dick was instantly hard.
I blew her a kiss with my gloved hand and walked away. I knew she wouldn’t call anyone for help. Matter of fact. My bet was, she went straight to her bedroom nightstand.
