Left Behind, page 4
He pulled up into her driveway, stuffed the gun beneath the seat, and hobbled through the rain and up the steps to her front door. She opened it before he could knock.
Without makeup and her hair all sleep-squished on one side, Lilah looked every day of her forty-seven years and then some.
“Come inside before you drown,” she said. “And stand on the doormat and strip. I don’t want you dripping all over my house.”
He didn’t hesitate and stripped down to his underwear. The deep cut on his knee was plainly visible, as was the rapidly spreading bruising around it.
“You did mess that knee up,” she said. “Here. Lean on me. You need a warm shower. Scrub soap in that cut while you’re at it, and then I’ll doctor it when you’re all dry.”
Lonny was hurting too bad to argue. As soon as she got him in the shower, she disappeared, and he went about the business of washing the evidence of two murders off his body, while thinking it was unfortunate the shower could not cleanse his soul.
Lilah picked up his clothes, wrinkling her nose at the smell as she carried them to the utility room. She wasn’t going to wash them, but she would toss them in the dryer. She got a glimpse of herself as she passed by the mirror in the hall and rolled her eyes.
“I look like shit, which should work in my favor. I don’t want him getting interested again. It took too long to get rid of him the first time,” she muttered, and headed into her bedroom.
As soon as she heard the water turn off, she went into the bathroom with a handful of old towels.
“Dry off in the tub. I can wash the blood out easier than mop it up.”
Lonny did as he was told, feeling slightly emasculated as she eyed his nude body. He never had been buff, but he’d let his belly go to paunch and couldn’t even see his dick anymore.
“Step out easy,” Lilah said, and held his arm to steady him. “Now, wrap this towel around you and sit down on the toilet lid, and we’ll see to this knee.”
Lonny sat. The cut was bleeding. His knee was throbbing. His head was pounding. He was at the feeling-sorry-for-himself stage when she poured alcohol into the cut. He yelped.
“Holy shit, Lilah! That burned!”
“You need stitches,” she muttered.
“Well, that ain’t gonna happen,” he said, and then moaned when she doused the cut with alcohol again.
“It’s not going to heal without them. Every time you bend your knee, it’s going to bust open and bleed.”
“Well, can you at least bandage it up good enough that I can get home without bleeding out? I’ll get my Medicaid card from the house and go straight to the hospital there.”
She frowned. “Yes, that’ll work. I need one of those stretchy bandage things to hold the gauze pads in place, but I don’t have any. Wait a second. I have something that will work,” she said, and ran into her bedroom.
He heard her banging doors and drawers and then she was back.
“I haven’t worn these in years, but I thought I still had a pair,” she said, and dropped down on her knees and began tearing open packets of gauze pads until she had eight of them sandwiched together. “Straighten out your leg,” she said, and as soon as he did, she placed the pads on top of the cut and pulled a pair of pantyhose from the pocket of her robe. She folded the panty part, pressed it tightly over the gauze pads, and then began wrapping the legs around his knee in opposite directions, pulling tightly with each rotation, until she ended up with the feet on top and tied them as tightly as she could pull, then stood him up. “There. That’ll hold until you can get home.”
Lonny groaned again. “Got any over-the-counter pain meds?”
Lilah took a bottle from the medicine cabinet, shook three five-hundred-milligram capsules into his hand, and ran tap water into a glass and handed it to him.
He downed them in one gulp and emptied the glass.
“Just sit. And keep your leg as straight as you can. Good thing it’s your left knee. I’ll go see if your clothes are dry enough to put back on.”
Lonny stared at his wet underwear lying on the floor. No way was he putting those back on. He was going home commando.
Lilah returned a few minutes later and handed him his shirt.
“They’re still damp, but you can at least get them back on.”
“I don’t see as how it matters,” he muttered, as he pulled the shirt over his head. “It’s still raining like a big dog. I’m just gonna get wet all over again.”
“You can have my umbrella. And don’t bother bringing it back. Consider this a random moment in time that shall never be repeated,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Then she leaned over, helped him get his legs into the pants, then stood him up.
“Okay. You’re done. Your boots are by the door. Let’s get you shod and on your way.”
Lonny stiff-legged it through the house, leaned on her as he stomped his feet back into his boots, and picked up his car keys from the table where he’d dropped them when he’d dropped his drawers.
She walked him out onto the porch and handed him the umbrella.
“Looks like the rain is letting up some. Drive safe. There are all kinds of crazy people out there,” she said.
And I’m one of them, he thought as he hobbled down the steps and to his car. By the time he got situated inside the car, she’d already closed her door and turned off the porch light.
He started the car, backed out of the drive, and headed back through town and up Pope Mountain. When he passed the scene of the wreck, he never even looked in that direction. He was bothered by the events of this day, but what was done was done. He also knew that when Billy Eggers’s body was discovered, his DNA would be all over it.
This shit show was far from over.
***
Lilah Perry walked back into the bathroom to clean up, saw Lonny’s sodden underwear lying by the shower, and carried it through the house and tossed it in the garbage can off the back porch. She went back inside and cleaned up her bathroom until there wasn’t a remnant of Lonny Pryor left, then went back to bed. Her alarm would go off at 5:00 a.m., and she’d be clocking in at work at the Jubilee PD by seven. She had been working as a clerk in records for almost two years. It was the best job she’d ever had.
Chapter 3
Lonny Pryor got back to his apartment just after daybreak. He’d driven straight to the ER to get his knee fixed and sat stoically through it all while the doctor and nurse razzed him about the pantyhose bandage as they applied surgical glue to close the cut. He nodded and laughed with them and was grateful for the prescription for pain pills when he walked out.
His visit to Billy Eggers had gone south, but he thought he’d cleaned up the witness. He didn’t know who she was, but he figured she’d bleed out or exposure would finish the job. He entered his apartment, weary to the bone. Stowed the handgun in his safe, then called in. The phone rang three times before it was answered.
“Hello?”
“This is Gunny.”
“Yeah?”
“Shit happened,” he said.
Junior Henley paused. “What kind of shit?”
“Eggers got violent. We got into a heated argument. I pulled my gun. We wrestled with it, and it went off. He’s dead.”
“Dead! You weren’t supposed to kill him!” Junior shouted.
“Yeah, well, it happened. And that’s not all. There was a woman at the house, and I didn’t know it until I saw her running to his car. I gave chase, but I had to run her down across two counties to shut her up. You never told me he had a woman.”
“Son of a bitch! He didn’t have a woman. What did she look like?”
“A skinny little blond with curly hair.”
“That’s his sister, or should I say, ‘She was his sister’? So, she’s out of the picture, too?”
“She is now,” Gunny said.
“You’re sure?” Junior asked.
“Well, I chased her through a freaking forest in a rainstorm and shot her in the back,” Gunny said.
“What did you do with the body?”
“Nothing. I missed getting struck by lightning by about fifty feet. I messed up my knee and got my ass out of there. She’d already wrecked the car. She was disoriented and walking in circles when I caught up to her,” Gunny said.
“How the hell did you find her?”
“Eggers had a tracker app on his phone for his own car. All I had to do was follow the blip.”
“What did you do with the phone?” Junior asked.
“Busted it into pieces and threw it out the window on the way home.”
Junior sighed. “Yeah, okay. What about the gun?”
“Yes. I’ll bring it over tomorrow.”
“No. You bring it over now. It’s Dad’s. I need it back,” Junior said.
Gunny frowned. “Dammit, Junior! I just got the cut in my knee glued shut. I hurt like hell, and I’m beat, and you gave me a registered gun? What the fuck’s wrong with you?”
The line went dead in his ear.
He went back to the safe and got the gun, then stopped at the kitchen table and broke it down, wiped his prints from every piece, and then wiped the ammo before reassembling the gun and reloading it. Then he hobbled back to his car and drove all the way across town and into the ritzy part of the city to Henley’s estate, pulled up in front of the iron gates across the driveway, then waited.
Moments later, the gates opened. He drove through, then around to the delivery entrance, got out with the gun, and rang the buzzer.
Seconds later, the door opened. Junior Henley was in the doorway. Gunny handed the gun over. “Are we good?” he asked.
“We’re good,” Junior said.
Gunny went back to the truck and drove home, but Junior’s troubles were just beginning. He had to get rid of his father’s gun and deal with the wrath of it going missing, and he had to let him know what had happened with the visit to Eggers. The lucky part for Junior was Daddy wasn’t home, so he loaded everything up in his Porsche, made a call, and left the property.
***
Johnny Knight was groggy from the pain pills he’d taken after lunch and lay down to sleep about midafternoon. Carey had tucked him in and told him she loved him, and that’s the last thing he remembered until he woke to a dark house. Surprised that it was so late, he rolled over to check the time and frowned. It was fifteen minutes after 3:00 a.m. and Carey wasn’t in bed beside him. He threw back the covers and sat up on the side of the bed until he got his bearings, and then grabbed his crutches and stood. The room was spinning, but it would stop, so he waited until it did and then went to the bathroom, sloshed some water on his face, and opened the bottle of pain meds. Only two left.
He replaced the lid and put it back in the cabinet. There was no money for refills, and the titanium rods and screws in his leg weren’t going away. He’d been a lineman for the electric company for almost ten years, and the fall he’d taken should have killed him. Instead, it had shattered his right leg from the knee down. The bones would knit back together, but he’d never climb another power pole or walk with ease again.
They’d been living off of Carey’s tips from waitressing while waiting for workman’s compensation to start paying out, and she wasn’t getting paid for five more days. He wasn’t sure he could hold out that long without pain meds, but he was about to find out.
He grabbed his crutches and headed for the living room, thinking Carey must have opted to sleep on the sofa to give him room in the bed. But the living room was empty, and when he began turning on the lights, it didn’t take long for him to realize her purse and phone were gone.
He hobbled back to the bedroom to get his phone, then sat back down on the side of the bed to call her and realized she’d left him a voicemail.
“Johnny, I caught the bus to Billy’s to borrow some money to get your meds refilled. He was just about to give me a ride home when someone drove up. Johnny gave me his car keys, told me to hide and, if I heard gunshots or fighting, to take his car and run.”
When she paused to take a breath, Johnny’s heart stopped, too. The panic in her voice was more than he could bear.
“There was a horrible argument, a lot of shouting, and I heard Billy say something that sounded like gunny or money, and the man said something about new men in the territory, then sounds of a fight and furniture breaking, then a gunshot. I ran out the back door, jumped in Billy’s car, and drove away. I know the man was following me, but the sun went down and now I’m driving in this terrible rainstorm. I don’t know where I am, and I think Billy’s dead, or he would have called.”
When she choked on a sob and paused, he wanted to cry with her, and then she continued.
“I think I took a wrong turn. I just wanted you to know. I’ll try to call again, but the cell service is spotty. I think I’m in the mountains. I love you.”
Johnny Knight was so scared he couldn’t breathe. His hands were trembling as he called her number over and over, but it kept going to voicemail, so he called his best friend, Thomas Wheaton. Tom was a cop. He would know what to do. But the phone rang and rang, and just as he thought it was going to go to voicemail, he heard Tom’s voice, short and bordering on aggravation.
“Damn it, Johnny. This better be good.”
“I just woke up. Carey’s gone and there’s a hell of a voicemail from her on my phone. She was at Billy’s. She thinks Billy’s dead, and she’s on the run from the man who shot him. She’s driving Billy’s car. She drove into a rainstorm in the dark and she’s lost. It’s all on the voicemail. I don’t know how to report this. I can’t fuckin’ walk, and our car is in the shop. I need help.”
Tom was already out of bed and pulling on clothes.
“I’m on the way. Hang in there, buddy. I need to hear the message to figure out who to report this to, and we’ll go from there. Give me fifteen minutes. Unlock your front door and turn on the porch light.”
“Thank you,” Johnny said, and then the line went dead.
He hobbled to the front door on his crutches, unlocked it, then turned on the porch light. He was hurting, but he wasn’t taking anything that would put him to sleep, so he popped three over-the-counter pain pills and sat down to wait.
***
Thomas Wheaton pulled up into the driveway at Johnny’s house, got out on the run, and when he walked in the house and saw the look on his buddy’s face, his heart sank.
“Have you heard back from her yet?”
Johnny shook his head and gave him the phone.
Tom listened to the message, and then handed it back and pulled his notebook and pen out of his back pocket. “What’s Billy’s address?” he asked, then wrote it down when Johnny told him. “What time did Carey leave?”
“I don’t know for sure. She helped me into bed a little after three p.m., I think. I’d taken pain pills and fell asleep. I woke up to this message, but she sent it just after eight p.m., and I didn’t wake up until just before I called you. I tried to call her over and over, but it just goes to voicemail.”
“What kind of car does he drive?” Tom asked.
“Last I knew, it was a white 2019 Jeep Cherokee,” Johnny said.
“Billy’s got priors,” Tom said. “If he’s dead, it’s likely drug related.”
“Oh, hell, we both knew that. But he’s all the family Carey has, and Billy practically raised her. He worships the ground she walks on.”
“Are you out of pain meds?” Tom asked.
“I have two left. I’ve been saving them for when it gets really bad.”
“Shit, Johnny. You could have asked me. Sit tight. We’ll deal with your meds in a minute. Right now, I need to call all this in.”
Johnny leaned back and closed his eyes as Tom walked out of the room to make the call, but he couldn’t stop the tears. Carey was his life, and he was scared to death that hers was already over. He could hear Tom’s voice in the other room, but let the sounds roll over him. All he wanted was for Carey to walk in the door with that beautiful smile on her face.
A few minutes later, Tom came back. “Here’s what’s happening,” he said. “The first thing they’re doing is a welfare check at Billy Eggers’s residence. If he’s dead, they’ll go from there. We put out a BOLO for his car. And the detectives are running the name Gunny through the system on the off chance there’s actually someone in the system with that alias. We’ll see how many hits we get on that. Now tell me where the bottle is with your pain meds.”
“In the bathroom medicine cabinet,” Johnny said.
Tom headed for the bedroom and then into the en suite bathroom. When he came back, he laid the two remaining pain pills on the table.
“I’m going to get this refilled. I’ll be back.”
Johnny wiped the tears off his face and nodded. “I owe you.”
“You owe me nothing, John Knight. Nothing. We’re friends. We’ll get through this together. Understood?”
Johnny nodded.
“Take the pain meds,” Tom said.
“Can’t. Not until I know what’s happened to my girl.”
“Jesus, Johnny. It could take—”
Johnny looked up.
Tom sighed. “Right. I think there’s a twenty-four-hour pharmacy not too far from here. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Do you need help getting back to bed?”
“No. I can manage. But take my house key with you. It’s in that dish on the hall table. Lock the door when you leave.”
***
The welfare check at Billy Eggers’s house yielded exactly what Carey had described. The front door was ajar. The living room was a disaster, and Billy’s body was lying in a pool of congealed blood. The back door to the house was open, and his car was missing. Crime scene investigators were called to the scene, as was the county coroner. The can of Pepsi that Carey had been drinking was bagged along with everything else, including a spent cartridge shell.
***
It was just after daybreak when Annie Cauley left her house on Pope Mountain to make her daily drive down into Jubilee. There would be people waiting in line for her baked goods by 6:00 a.m., and she needed to have Granny Annie’s Bakery open for business. She knew her daughter, Laurel, would have driven in before daylight and already be at the shop setting dough to rise.
