Page 37 of Diesel's Perseverance
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The neighborhood, itsmanicured lawns and yards filled with evergreens, maples, and oaks, was dark and quiet. A few lights were on in some of the homes and television screens flickered in several upper windows.
Cursing under his breath, Diesel strained to see the street numbers. Animal whistled and veered his bike to the right and down a narrow road, and Diesel and Rags followed suit. A mile farther, a stately mansion stood among a forest of pine trees. A couple of lights illuminated the rooms on the ground floor and the second story. Myla had told him they were on rotating timers and would go on and off during the night until only one small light remained on. The porch light also stayed on, and motion lights were throughout the backyard and the sides of the residence.
The men shifted their bikes to neutral, switched off the engines, and rolled them to the front of the house. They stashed them among the evergreens, pulled out their Glocks, and silently reached the large entry door.
Diesel undid three of the locks with Myla’s keys. The wooden door swung open. The alarm system beeped, and he went over to the panel and disarmed it with the code she’d given him. Once the system was deactivated, Animal shut the door behind them and secured the locks.
Rags whistled. “Nice digs.”
Diesel shook his head as he glanced around the enormous marble entry and the grandiose spiral staircase. “China White brings in a ton of dough.” Glancing around, he knew his brother had gotten in deep with the distribution of fentanyl and other opioids.
“Damn. It looks like your brother got in over his head,” Throttle said, walking and touching the gold-gilded timber carved panels on the foyer’s walls. “There’s some expensive shit in here.”
Diesel’s jaw clenched as he nodded.Freddy went over the fuckin’ top.Motioning to the two men, he walked toward the kitchen. Myla had drawn a rough sketch of the house, marking where she’d found the blood and the locations of various rooms.
“Here it is,” Rags said, pointing his Maglite flashlight to a large area with a patchwork of ultra-light blotches and dark rust stains seeping into the hardwood floor.
Diesel pictured Myla on her knees, pouring bleach on the floor as she wiped frantically to get rid of the evidence of Freddy’s indiscretion. Unfortunately, she wasn’t successful.
“It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here since Myla left,” he said.
“What the fuck happened to the body?” Animal asked, his eyes darting around the area.
Diesel crouched for a closer look; he pivoted, sweeping his gaze side to side. “Not sure. It doesn’t look like there are any drag marks,” he said.
“The dude’s gotta be somewhere,” Rags said. He walked into the kitchen and opened the door to a large pantry.
“We’d smell it if he were stuffed somewhere,” Diesel said, rising to his feet.
“Unless your brother used acid or lye to get rid of him,” Animal said.
Diesel shook his head. “I doubt Freddy would’ve thought of that. Besides, I’m sure he didn’t plan on killing the sonofabitch. He definitely got rid of the body because when Myla got home that night, there was a shit ton of blood but no body.” He looked over at Rags. “Anything interesting in there?”
“Nothing much.”
Diesel heard Rags rummaging through the shelves.
“Wait a sec,” he said.
“What’s up?” Diesel asked, walking toward the pantry.
“There are a helluva lot of plastic waste bags. The real big kind.”
“Lemme see.” Diesel took one of the boxes and noticed almost half the bags were gone.
“I wonder when these bags were bought,” Rags said.
“Who knows, but I say we check out the house and grounds,” Diesel said.
“The neighbors would’ve smelled it. And we don’t smell anything nasty in here.” Animal rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m betting he used those bags to hack up the body, but he must’ve thrown them out elsewhere.”
“No,”—Diesel shook his head—“Freddy would never be able to do that shit. He probably wrapped the body up with the bags. I’ll bet it’s somewhere in the house.”
“I don’t know,” Animal replied.
He snapped his fingers. “The panic room. It’s airtight, and no one can get in. The perfect place to hide a body and get the hell out in a hurry.” Glancing at the sketch, he rushed out of the room to the wide landing at the head of the staircase’s sweeping curve. He took the stairs two at a time, the echo of his friends’ footfalls close behind. Diesel hesitated after reaching the marbled-floor hallway and skimmed over the floor plan. He found the two double-wide doors at the other end of the hall and ran over to them.
