Love Lies Bleeding Page 5

  “Triggered the bomb myself,” Shep said, as he wandered back. “Isn’t as gratifying as face to face contact.” He thumped a small table down beside Pamela, its surface covered by a variety of artfully displayed pliers, hammers, chisels, and other hand tools. Shep’s pleasure in his work was evident in the care he took with the arrangement of those tools. “Blew his body to billions of bloody pieces. That’s why you had no body to bury.”

  “I refuse to hear anymore. I can’t. I can’t.” If Pamela’s hands weren’t tied she would have brought them to her ears, but instead she just squeezed her eyes tightly shut and tried to will her ears to block the men’s voices.

  “Now Shep,” Mr. Doyle tsk-tsked his accomplice. “We thought that the troubles would end with Grady, but then Erwin comes running.”

  “Like the lap dog he was.” Shep, though currently mostly occupied with polishing his pliers, sneered.

  “With the news that Grady had recently realigned himself with another agency, and without Erwin policing his reports, we had no way of knowing who he told what. More importantly, we had know way of knowing how Grady, brilliant geneticist that he was, might have improved on our little experiment.”

  “That’s were you come in,” Shep added.

  “You are the other agency’s go between.” Mr. Doyle was a fan of being correct, he was utterly sure of his deduction.

  “No.”

  “And those emails are coded.”

  “Please.”

  “Not yet, dear.”

  “A chair for Mr. Doyle!” Shep yelled. The driver hurried over with another chair and set it opposite Pamela a few feet away.

  “A little offset, please, so the sight line is cleaner.”

  The driver dutifully moved the chair.

  A goal was scored in the hockey game, and the remaining hoodlums roared loudly and patted each other on backs. Distracted, the driver turned to the TV.

  As if woken by the cheering, the tall, coffin-sized crate began to rock and creak. Something pounded the boards from the inside.

  “And get that fucking thing out of here!” Shep shouted.

  “Sure thing, boss,” the driver answered as he muted the TV.

  The hoodlums all rushed to the crate. Tilting it on its side, they hauled it onto the truck.

  Mr. Doyle sat gracefully, then smiled charmingly at Pamela. “I do love to watch my Shep work,” he confided.

  Pamela couldn’t take her eyes off the crate. Another fierce round of banging erupted, the hoodlums, seemingly truly terrified, dropped the crate on the floor of the truck. Something started to roar from within.

  “Now!” Shep howled at the hoodlums, who scrambled around the crate looking busy and frantic, but without actually touching it further.

  Leaving the crate lying on its side, the driver yanked the back door of the truck closed and sprinted up to the cab. One hood went for the loading bay door, the others staying in the back of the truck, though they sat on boxes placed as far away from the crate as possible.

  “Don’t worry, dear,” Mr. Doyle said in a smoothly soothing tone. “Be a good girl and you never have to find out what’s in the crate.”

  The loading bay door was slammed shut from the outside. After a moment, the truck loudly pulled away. Pamela was now alone with Shep and Mr. Doyle.

  “I don’t …” she whispered, knowing her protest was fruitless before she voiced it. “I don’t know anything.” Shep laughed.

  “Really?” Mr. Doyle said. “Well, in that case, perhaps we should let you go.” His teasing tone caused Shep to continue to chuckle.

  “What if … I don’t know anything, and all I want is to be with Grady. Could you … could you take me back to the cemetery?”

  “Nope,” Shep said, seemingly distracted by the difficulty he was having choosing between sets of pliers.

  “But … but I couldn’t talk to anyone between here and there and I would … I was planning —”

  “Yeah, we know,” Shep said. “We’ve seen the bandages. Now, unless I’m asking you a question, shut the fuck up.” He settled on a smaller but pointier set of pliers.

  Karli entered the warehouse, dressed seemingly as slutty as possible, her hair three times its normal size. For a moment, Pamela couldn’t equate this woman with her best friend. Her brain actually stuttered over the information delivered by her eyes. Karli seemed to be having a bit of a tough time negotiating between the four-inch heeled shoes she was currently wearing and how badly her micro-mini rode up with every step she took. She carried a paper bag and spoke in sing song voice while she looked around the warehouse.

  “Oh, Sheppy? I had John drop me off with lunch. Your favorite. Montreal smoked beef bagel …”

  Karli saw Shep where he loomed over Pamela. Mr. Doyle didn’t even bother to turn around in his chair. “Oh, I …”

  Pamela, utterly flustered, opened her mouth to speak just as Shep slapped a hand across it. “What did I just fucking say? I ask. You speak.” He turned to Karli. “I’m a little busy, doll. Leave the lunch, hey?”

  “Of course. Have fun!” Karli dropped the bag on the table and exited as quickly as her four-inch heels allowed.

  “You knew her,” Mr. Doyle was watching Pamela. He was not pleased.

  “I … yes, she … looked familiar,” Pamela answered. She never had been a good liar.

  Mr. Doyle, on the edge of being actually pissed, looked to Shep, who sighed. “Ah, shit. I kind of liked the broad. I’ll take care of it.”

  “What!” Pamela panicked. “I don’t know for certain.”

  “Later,” Mr. Doyle snapped.

  Shep nodded and returned to studying Pamela. “In order for me to gauge your reactions and answers, I need to get to know you a little.”

  Pamela stared in panic at Mr. Doyle. “It’s all right, dear. Answer his questions.”

  “So, what do you do when you’re not burying a dead fiancé?”

  “Graphic design.”

  “Advertising.”

  “Marketing, actually.”

  “You fucking with me?”

  “No, I —”

  “What’s the fucking difference then?”

  “Well, in marketing —”

  Shep lunged at Pamela and she squeaked in terror. He laughed. “That’s enough small talk.”

  “Yes, rather,” Mr. Doyle agreed. “Start with the back molars. If she talks early on, maybe we can gift her mother with a prettier corpse.”

  Shep grabbed Pamela by the jaw. Though completely hindered by the ropes tying her to the chair, she attempted to struggle, clamping her mouth closed.

  He pried her jaw open and shoved the pliers in.

  She gagged.

  “Sight lines! Sight lines!” Mr. Doyle called with a terribly excited and somewhat sick edge to his voice.

  Shep shifted his body so Mr. Doyle could see. He bent his shoulder into his work.

  Pamela gargled a scream as Shep pulled a bloody molar out of her mouth. He held the tooth up in his pliers, grinning proudly as he turned to show off his prize.

  Behind him, Karli had a small revolver, perhaps a .22 caliber, pressed to Mr. Doyle’s temple.

  Even from within her haze of pain, Pamela saw Shep’s jaw drop. Karli thumb cocked the four-inch gun. Mr. Doyle didn’t look happy.

  “What the fuck?” Shep couldn’t wrap his head around this new development.

  “Yes, well,” Karli replied, more than a little put out. “I suppose this is as good a time to tell you as any other. You don’t do that well at all. Fucking, I mean. You seem handy with the pliers.”

  Pamela groaned, “Karli?”

  “I’m here, babe. In the flesh.”

  “You couldn’t have pulled the gun earlier?”

  “I had to get the okay to blow my cover.”

  “Ah. Perhaps you’re the one who should be tied to the chair,” Mr. Doyle said, sounding just as refined with a gun threatening to blow his brai
ns out as he did without.

  “Only you like it like that, grandpa,” Karli snipped.

  “Watch your mouth, little cunt,” Shep growled. Then he spread his arms to display his meaty girth. “You think that pea shooter can take me?”

  “I think that, this close, it’ll blow right through Mr. Doyle’s brains. And, BTW, if you didn’t like your girlfriends so slaggily dressed, I could have concealed a bigger gun.”

  “My whores, you mean.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Whatever. Untie Pamela.”

  Shep just glared at her. Karli pressed the gun harder against Mr. Doyle’s temple and he sucked his breath through his teeth in annoyance.

  Shep pulled a long hunting knife out of his boot and crossed to cut Pamela out of the chair.

  “Stand,” Karli commanded Mr. Doyle. He complied. “You coming, babe?”

  Pamela slowly stood while pressing a hand to her jaw. “If I bring the tooth, can they reattach it?”

  “FUCK THE TOOTH!” Shep screamed. “You fucking wanted to fucking kill yourself twelve hours ago!”

  Pamela flinched and quickly crossed to Karli. “Yes, you’re right. I’m not thinking clearly.”

  “Let’s go. You stay,” Karli commanded Shep. “Mr. Doyle is a valuable asset, and I’d hate to do anything permanent. But in the end, one more off the streets always gets you a medal. The laptop, Pom-Pom.”

  Pamela took the laptop from Mr. Doyle. He made no effort to resist, doing so would have been beneath him. Karli, using Mr. Doyle as a shield, slowly backed toward the exit.

  Pamela pulled one of the pink poof flowers off the waistband of her skirt. She stuffed it in her mouth to staunch the bleeding of her gums.

  Shep didn’t move as they fled.

  •••••••••

  Karli, Mr. Doyle in tow, and Pamela burst through the warehouse door and scrambled toward Erwin’s car. Mr. Doyle fought to retain his dignity even while being dragged along at gun point, but the lapel of his suit was being severely crushed by Karli and the loose gravel scuffed his custom Italian leather shoes.

  “Pamela, the trunk,” Karli said.

  Pamela ran ahead, fumbling open the unlocked driver’s door and pulling the latch to pop the trunk. Karli followed with the gun still pressed to Mr. Doyle’s temple. She gave him a shove toward the trunk, but he balked.

  “Get in,” Karli growled.“I will not,” Mr. Doyle emphatically answered.

  “You will get in or I will shoot off your dick.” Karli shifted the gun from Mr. Doyle’s temple to his groin. “I know you like to watch freaky shit. How do you think you’d like that show?”

  Mr. Doyle inhaled, lifted his chin as if to make some retort, and then, having weighed the choices, climbed in.

  Karli slammed the trunk closed and saw Pamela still standing there, just staring. “Pamela!? Get in the damn car!”

  Pamela scrambled to the passenger-side door as Karli dove for the driver’s side.

  •••••••••

  As she climbed in, Pamela tossed the laptop in the back seat, then hauled the remainder of her dress inside the vehicle. Karli scrambled into the driver’s seat and reached for the keys. They weren’t in the ignition.

  “The keys! The keys!”

  “Erwin must have … must have had them,” Pamela answered, dazed and obviously in a lot of pain.

  “Does he have them or not?”

  “Maybe in his dead mob pockets. In the bottom of some river.”

  Karli, mouth agape, stopped to stare at Pamela as if she was stuck in the process of realizing just how damaged her best friend might be.

  “Is that inappropriate?” Pamela continued. “You know, river, sleeps with the fishes. Is that racist? Is that disrespectful of the dead?”

  Karli shook her head as if to clear it, then began fiddling with the steering column. “Why, why didn’t I drive? I’ll have to hot-wire it.”

  The door to the warehouse slammed open and Shep exited. He was sharpening his hunting knife as he walked toward the car and the women.

  “Fuck, fuck,” Karli said, slamming her palms into the steering wheel twice. “I can’t do it that fast.” She opened her car door and turned to Pamela, “Run.”

  Pamela didn’t move. Shep was about halfway to the car now.

  “RUN!” Karli screamed at Pamela one final time before she twisted out of the car and stood up to confront Shep.

  •••••••••

  Despite her unsteady footwear, Karli calmly spread her legs and raised her gun in a classic shooting stance. She aimed her tiny gun at Shep, who continued to steadily close the gap between himself and the car. She breathed and then pulled the trigger. She missed.

  “You know that’s strictly a short-range, minimum-performance weapon.” Shep tossed his whetstone over his shoulder and readjusted his hold on the hunting knife. He was left-handed. Either that or he preferred to grab with his right and knife with his left. According to his agency file, which Karli had memorized back to front, he’d had a lot of practice. Supposedly, it takes ten thousand hours to become an expert at something. Shep had probably banked that by his mid-twenties.

  Without pause, Karli shot at him again.

  She winged Shep’s right shoulder.

  He stopped to peer down at the wound and its slight amount of seeping blood. He laughed in his typical hyena bark, then kept coming.

  “Karli!?”

  Karli turned to see that Pamela was struggling to free her dress from the car. Pamela’s eyes widened and she frantically gestured over Karli’s shoulder as she cried out again.

  Shep had closed the gap in a couple of fast, extra-wide strides. He grabbed for the gun, yanking it above Karli’s head. Karli twisted out from underneath his arm, and, with her own arm twisted behind her, leaned forward over and against the car hood. She then whipped a backward kick to Shep’s groin.

  He grunted, letting go of Karli to cup his groin with his right hand. He didn’t fall, though.

  In one continuously fluid move, Karli flipped the leg she’d kicked over the hood of the car and rolled across it. Landing smoothly, she tugged her skirt down from where it had ridden up to her waist and reached for Pamela. Karli grabbed two massive handfuls of Pamela’s dress and yanked. Enough inner fabric ripped that Pamela, freed, tumbled backwards to the ground.

  Karli grabbed Pamela’s hand and half-dragged, half-helped her up onto her feet. Then, pulling Pamela with her, she dashed toward the nearby forest.

  “Yes, run,” Shep called after them. He didn’t bother raising his voice much. He was still recovering from the groin kick. “I missed my morning jog. Not that this will be much of a challenge.” He actually seemed rather mournful.

  “I will shoot you, asshole!” Karli screamed back. “Get within three to five yards and you’re put down!”

  Pamela and Karli disappeared into the woods.

  Shep straightened, and, walking gingerly, popped the car trunk.

  “Get them back, Shep,” Mr. Doyle ordered the second the truck opened. “Maim, no kill.” Shep wasn’t happy about the last part of the order, but Mr. Doyle knew best, as he always did. “You can have your blood later, after I get my answers.”

  THE HUNT

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Capilano Regional Park Forest

  Shep had been with Mr. Doyle since he was sixteen, at which time his mother had finally given up on him and took off for parts unknown. Sometimes, when he bothered to think about such things, he wondered if Mr. Doyle was actually his father.

  His mother had always used to shriek and shriek at him about all the little bloody things he did, but Mr. Doyle hadn’t ever cared about the animals that died whenever Shep was around a place for too long. Indeed, Mr. Doyle soon provided much larger canvases with which to work, and oversaw his development in this area. Guiding him, much like a father would have guided a son into the family business.

  Though he preferred the bodywork
, Shep didn’t mind his other duties. He knew what and when Mr. Doyle wanted to eat everyday, and where the best bagels and lox were to be bought from. He perfected his espresso shots even though he had to use that cat-shit coffee. He didn’t even remotely care it was actually civet feces, nor did anyone dare correct him about it.

  •••••••••

  The Capilano Regional Park Forest encompassed most of the upstream areas of the Capilano River below the Cleveland Dam, which was a popular tourist destination. The fish hatchery, located about five hundred meters downhill from the dam, offered educational displays. During spawning season, salmon could be seen using the fish ladder. None of this, of course, was remotely relevant to Karli or Pamela as they fled through the massive cedar and fir trees. Pamela actually had no idea where they were, though she could hazard a guess that they were somewhere on the North Shore. Karli just hoped that the piles of brown needles underfoot would muffle the atrocious amount of noise Pamela was making as she crashed through the forest.

  “I’m not really supposed to shoot him. I am kind of on probation over this Grady thing,” Karli confessed, and then promptly turned her ankle for the third time on her four-inch heels. She slowed to rip off the offending shoes.

  “I thought you were a kindergarten teacher?” Pamela couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

  “Well, that’s just really code for stripper.” Karli tossed one shoe and then the other in the opposite direction to where they were headed.

  “You’re a stripper?”

  “Nah, that’s just my real cover.” Karli now tamed her hair back into a bun as she spoke. “I mean, the money is good and the agency lets me keep anything stuck in my panties, kind of like a retirement fund. But it’s not a longterm lifestyle I aspire to.”

  “Oh.” Pamela didn’t really get it … any of it.

  “That true, what Shep said about you earlier today?”

  “Not wanting to live without Grady, you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t get that.”

  “Not many people do.”

  Karli looked at Pamela as if finally truly seeing her. “Not all of us are so lucky.”