Page 66 of Making His Bones

“Grandpa!” shrieked Narcissa, still on her knees. “What the fuck are you doing? I’m with one with the gun, you know!”

But one sharp kick from Bud’s boot took care of that. The gun went spinning into a corner of the room.

“Grandpa!” Narcissa continued to yell as Bud shook the can with graphic, frightening bold-colored graphics on it. Wasp spray, all right. “How can you fucking do this to me? I’m your blood! You’re going to leave this slutty child abandoner here? She’s the fucking criminal, not me!”

Bud whipped the fluorescent yellow cap off the can, shaking his head. “I beg to differ, son,” he said morosely. “You strangled her daughter and threw her into a suitcase, and that’s been a shame on this fine upstanding family for all these years.”

Wolf and I shared wide-eyed looks. Fine, upstanding family? It was amazing what fantasylands people could live in.

When we looked back on the scene, Bud was actually jamming the can into Narcissa’s mouth, his other hand round the back of her neck pressing her face toward him. He sprayed without let-up, just one long stream of noxious poison running down his grandson’s throat. She punched his legs, all right, but the old man’s strong will manifested as strength, and soon her blows became feeble as her eyes rolled up into her head.

And poor Elektra had to watch all of this. Was Bud serious about leaving her there? DeFreeze would pretend to buy any story she made up, and—

Narcissa stopped banging on Bud’s legs and slumped to the floor. All was silent except for Elektra’s frightened panting.

That was when I noticed Narcissa wasn’t panting.

Had Bud done it? Had he murdered his grandson because his mental state was a stain on the family’s “good” name?

I couldn’t take it anymore. I made a fresh jump for the window, but Wolf Glaser tore me away from the mobile home. I was so unprepared for it, I tumbled with him back to the ground in a tangle of limbs. The gunshot wound seared through my shoulder anew, as if to remind me I’d actually been shot.

“You fucker,” I grunted, trying to extricate myself.

“You asshole,” said Wolf, trying to punch me.

By the time I was able to leap up, backhanding Wolf across the face to keep him down, Bud Pitchfork was gone. I heard him shouting something in another room but paid him no mind as I jumped like a trout at a may fly, making it through the spiked window on the first try.

In fact, I had such momentum I flew through the room like Thor. I landed kneeling, instantly feeling as though I’d broken both my ankles, but at least I was there.

“Don’t touch that gun!” I shouted.

Elektra was squatting so low her hands, bound behind her back, were this close to picking up the gun by its barrel. Her jaw hung askew, her gorgeous lush hair framing her face in a mess, and a shard of glass dropped from my earlobe.

“Gray,” huffed Wolf at the window. “Help me up.”

I assisted Elektra to her feet, leaving the gun untouched. It would be handy later on if it only had Narcissa’s prints on it. I wrapped her in an enormous bear hug. Burying my face in her tousled hair, I breathed deeply of her scent. I swear I’ve never felt a surge of sheer love rush through me like that before. Maybe when I’d hugged a dog. That might be why I commanded her, “Stay,” and strode to the window. “Wolf. Give me your knife or whatever you have on your utility belt.”

“Bud just hustled Tiago out to his fish van,” said Wolf. “He has a big gag tied around his mouth.”

I cut the zip-ties at the small of Elektra’s back. “He probably didn’t want to leave him here as an unreliable witness.”

“That’s exactly it,” said Elektra. “Poor Tiago saw Narcissa tear my clothes off and he hollered up a fit.”

“Fucking cray-cray cockbite,” I said, kicking Narcissa in the hip for good measure. She just lolled a little, like an endangered, androgynous beached whale whose hormones and cells had failed to sustain her. She was bound to peter out with her instincts leading her astray. Trying to live with her twisted desires had led to being dependent on all of those drugs, and nothing had helped her.

“The rolling pin,” I said. “Let’s leave that in an obvious place.”

Elektra nodded, and I picked up the pin from where Bud had flung it, using a stray T-shirt as a rag to keep my prints and DNA off it.

“Help me up,” Wolf cried again.

“Stay there, bozo,” I said. “We’re coming down. Elektra’s not staying here as a witness.”

Wolf’s curly Jewish hair popped over the windowsill. “Then how can she witness this twat ODing on bug spray?”

“The spray can and the tox screen will do that,” I said.

I followed Elektra out to the hallway, where she picked up tattered remnants of a flowered dress. She’d been wearing those lately instead of the polo shirts and I loved that feminine side of her. I wanted to go back and kick “Narcissa” Whitman across the room at the thought of her ripping the dress from my beloved, but we had to haul ass.