Biscotti and Brutality, page 9
“Wayne Tyler...” Jill's voice entered the air distressed and nearly defeated. “So Wayne blamed me...I always felt he did. I tried to help him...I tried to change him...” She stumbled over to the kitchen table and sat down. “Jim, I need a glass of cold water.”
“Sure thing, honey.” Jim hurried to pour his upset wife a glass of cold well water. “Here you go.”
Jill accepted the water and looked at Bethany. “You're a smart woman, Bethany, and I know you had your reasons for keeping your lips sealed. I can see that you knew nothing could have been accomplished even if you had told us. So tell me, what do we do now?”
Bethany locked her eyes on the front door. “Ben is going to have to create a crime scene and have the body of Rhonda Banks taken away. Whoever killed Rhonda Banks will surely watch.”
“I better get on the horn.” Ben dashed over to the kitchen telephone and made a call. “This is Ben. We have a dead body at the Cunningham place. I need every available man on the scene. Call Fred...well, wake him up, Mae. Fred is the county coroner. I don't care if Fred is sick—I'm sick, too.” His voice became hard and professional. “We have two dead bodies. I don't want the body count to rise. Do as you’re told, Mae. Is that clear? Good. Tell Fred I want this situation silent. I don't want panic in Hay Lake...good…no, I'll call the mayor.”
Julie walked over to Bethany, took her hand, and gently pulled the exhausted woman over to the side. “Love, we need to call Sarah. I think we're in over our heads.”
“Me, too,” Bethany admitted. “But Julie, right now I need time to think. I can't put my finger on it, but the man who appeared at the hospital and inside this kitchen...I don't think he's bad. Yes, he admitted to killing Richard Banks, but after he told me what Richard Banks was planning to do…well, I certainly don't condone murder, but maybe certain people are better off dead?”
“What about Rhonda Banks? I thought Rhonda Banks told you she was planning to leave America?” Julie asked.
“Someone obviously got to Rhonda Banks before she could leave the county, honey. The question is who?” Yes, the question is who. My gut is telling me the mystery man didn't kill Rhonda Banks. Wayne Tyler? Possibly, but how does Wayne Tyler connect to Rhonda Banks? How does some loose marble Jill used to foster tie into the death of a woman who was obviously eager to leave America? She rubbed the bridge of her nose with a tired hand. “Question marks are lethal friends.”
“I agree with that statement, love.” Julie patted Bethany's arm. “You've had a rough day. You need to rest. I'll take over downstairs for a bit.”
“Honey, you're sick. I'm not.” Bethany felt Julie's forehead. “Your fever is down a little, but you're still warm.”
“Well, I admit I feel rough, love.” Julie scanned the tense kitchen. Jill and Jim looked awful, consumed with worry and confusion. Ben met Julie's eyes, shook his head, and made a call to the local mayor. “Love, the next time we leave Snow Falls, let's go to a deserted island in the middle of nowhere.”
“The snowman would follow us to the island, honey. The snowman will follow us anywhere.” Bethany drew in a deep breath, walked to the back door, and looked down at the dead body lying face-down in a bit of mud. “Where did your life get you?” Bethany whispered to Rhonda Banks’s corpse as a hard gust of icy night wind growled past her face. “Where did being so evil get you? Nowhere.”
Chapter Eleven
Steven waited until a flashing ambulance drove away from a tense farmhouse that had been transformed into a cozy bed and breakfast. To his relief, Ben Nayes, the local sheriff, followed the ambulance, leaving Bethany Lights and Julie Walsh alone with Jim and Jill Cunningham. Steven had no idea who had delivered the dead body of Rhonda Banks to Bethany Lights. Wayne Tyler had been captured hours before by a brave State Patrol. A deadly shootout had occurred, and the State Patrol put a bullet in Wayne Tyler's right shoulder and left leg. A second State Trooper who had arrived on the scene put two bullets into Wayne Tyler's stomach. Wayne Tyler was lying on an operating table in critical condition. So who killed Rhonda Banks? That was the question of the hour—a question Steven had to find an answer to.
After Ben drove away, tailing the ambulance like a tick searching for a dog, Steven cautiously waited, hiding in the loft of an old barn. Using a pair of night vision goggles, he surveyed a dark and damp land. The land appeared clear, but Steven was a trained soldier. He spent an hour in the loft and dedicated a second hour to patrolling the outskirts of the land, roaming through dark woods and examining lazy cow pastures attached to rolling hills. When a hard rain fell, Steven concluded that the land was clean...or was it? Someone had delivered a dead body to Bethany Lights. The unknown killer had to be lurking about, but Steven couldn't locate anyone or anything except a few deer and a grumpy raccoon. “The land is secure, yes, but I know better.”
Steven used every caution in his bag of tricks as he approached Jim’s and Jill's house. He quickly disarmed the security system and slipped through the back door. Bethany, Julie, Jim, and Jill were still standing in the kitchen. Steven didn't act surprised. He knew that a welcome party was waiting for him. “Starting to rain,” he spoke in a clear voice, closing the back door with a firm hand. “Mind if I have a cup of coffee?”
“Want a donut?” Jim asked, blowing his nose into a handkerchief.
“Please...and thank you,” Steven nodded. Bethany studied Steven's hard face, prepared the man a cup of coffee, and retrieved a coffee donut off a plate sitting on the kitchen counter. She took both items to the kitchen table. Steven accepted his gifts, sat down, and removed his hat, revealing a tough military style haircut. “I don't know who killed Rhonda Banks. Wayne Tyler was pulled over by a state trooper a few hours ago and decided he would rather die than be taken into custody. A shootout took place. Wayne Tyler is now lying across an operating table in critical condition with several bullets in him. I'm sure his face will be spread across the morning newspaper.”
“So it's true. Wayne Tyler was on his way to Hay Lake to kill me and Jim.” Jill’s voice dripping with fear. “I always knew deep down that Wayne was criminally insane. I didn't want to admit the truth, I wanted to believe against all hope there was a chance for him.”
“You care about mangy mutts, honey, there's no crime in that.” Jim patted his wife's arm. “I wanted to believe that there was good in Wayne, too.”
“Not as much as I did.” Jill shook her head and turned her attention to Steven. “Who are you?”
“My name isn't important—”
“I want a name,” Jill demanded. “Give me a fake name, but I swear if you don't give me a name, I will take a broom and chase you out of my home.”
“Alright. You can call me...Steven.” Steven disclosed his real name, assuming the four people staring at him would think it was a fake. He took a sip of coffee and focused on a donut sitting on a saucer. “Rhonda Banks was supposed to be in London by now. I have no information on her death. That's the truth.”
“I believe you.” Bethany took a seat across from Steven. “I received some information about you today. A text. I know who you work for.”
“D.R.I.P.,” Steven confirmed, and then took a bite of his donut. “I'm a rogue CIA agent working to make right for all my wrongs. It's that simple. I will not sit here and pretend I'm a saint because I'm not. I've killed innocent people. For that, there are no words. My life is now dedicated to getting rid of the trash. Enough said.”
“Alright then.” Jim nodded. “We accept your words and believe you are telling the truth. I have one question: are you on our side?”
“I'm here to find out who killed Rhonda Banks. Until I do, yes, I'm on your side. Once my mission is complete, I'll leave and you will never see me again. Simple. Direct.”
Julie focused on Bethany, who was staring at Steven with deep, thoughtful eyes. “Love?” she asked, speaking through a stuffy nose.
“Whoever killed Rhonda Banks left her body for me to find. I need to know why,” Bethany told Steven. “Why was the body of Rhonda Banks brought back to this land?”
“I don't know,” Steven said honestly.
“Rhonda Banks was shot twice in the chest. She had dried blood attached to her clothes. The woman wasn't killed on this property,” Bethany continued, keeping her voice stern. “Any ideas?”
“No.”
“Alright then.” Bethany retrieved her cell phone and called Sarah. “Sarah, a man named Steven is sitting before me. He claims he doesn't know who killed Rhonda Banks. The floor is yours.”
Far away in Snow Falls, Sarah quickly took a sip of hot coffee as Conrad leaned back in a kitchen chair and waited. “The man you're speaking to is named Steven Frosellan. Mr. Frosellan worked for the CIA as a hitman. His assignment was to kill political opposition. Eleven years ago, Mr. Frosellan became a rogue agent. Ever since then, he has been marked for death by the global government. Isn't that right, Mr. Frosellan?”
Steven simply took a sip of coffee. “You're a resourceful woman, Mrs. Garland—sorry, Mrs. Spencer. Your friend Peter is also very resourceful. I'm impressed.” He glanced at Bethany. “This is why I attempted to scare you away. Now that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, perhaps we can work as a team?”
“Mr. Frosellan, what do you know about Rhonda Banks?” Sarah stepped back in. She paused for a second, studied a wooden back door that was holding back a vicious wind, and looked at Conrad, who folded his arms and nodded. “Rhonda Banks is dead. We need to be honest with one another.”
Steven took a sip of coffee. “Detective—”
“I'm retired,” Sarah informed Steven. “My husband, Detective Spencer, is standing in the kitchen with me. If you want to speak to an active detective, you can speak to him.”
“Detective Spencer has an impressive reputation, Sarah,” Steven spoke, allowing his voice to become personal. “Your husband is the type of man I wouldn't mind having at my side. I'm sure the feeling isn't mutual. My record is stained with blood. I'm now marked as a filthy rat.”
“That's not true,” Conrad spoke up. “You've taken out a lot of bad people, Steven. Yeah, you killed many innocent people...I studied your records. You joined the Marine Core at seventeen and became a sniper. At the age of twenty, the CIA recruited you. You came from a hard family. Your mother ended up in prison for drugs when you were eight and left you to be raised by your stepfather who ended up in prison for nearly beating you to death. You were tossed about from one foster home to the next...ended up in juvenile hall for getting into countless fights—you stabbed a man, robbed a store. The Marine Corps barely accepted you. A soft-hearted judge fought on your side. By the time the CIA got its claws in you, you were ripe.”
“I suppose I was,” Steven agreed, showing no concern that Conrad had brought up personal matters of his past. His sudden change in attitude caught Bethany off guard. “I was a furious young man. I saw the world as my enemy. I wanted to be on the winning team. Becoming a CIA agent made me feel invincible. I was finally on top of the world, in absolute control of everyone. Only...I was on the losing team, and I wasn't in control. Too bad it took many so long to learn the truth.”
“What changed you?” Bethany asked before she could catch herself. “What made you risk your life and turn against the CIA?”
Steven lowered his eyes. “I killed a man campaigning for a certain politician. I placed myself in the man's home and waited for him to return. Unbeknownst to me, the man had picked up his daughter for weekend custody. When this man entered his home, I attacked him with fierce force. My agenda was to subdue him and implant what we called at the CIA 'heart-stopping juice’ into his blood stream and toss his body into a bathtub filled with water.” His voice filled with pain. “When I attacked, I heard the most awful scream...'Leave my daddy alone!' The man's daughter, an eight-year-old little girl, hit me. I looked down into a terrified face and realized I had become a monster that would haunt the dreams of an innocent girl. I...at that moment, something happened. I burst out of the man's house and ran...and ran...and ran.”
“What happened?” Julie stepped forward. “Where did you run?”
Jim and Jill both urged Steven to continue. “You're among friends now,” Jim assured Steven.
Steven kept his eyes bowed. Friends? What were friends? He didn't trust anyone, not even the people he connected to the shadow organization he worked for. Betrayal was the number-one killer among friends. “The man I intended to kill was a youth pastor campaigning for a politician threatening to unravel a sensitive agenda that could have destroyed many careers. The politician in question was preparing to reveal a corrupt budget plan if elected as senator. At the current time, this politician was a state governor—don't ask who because the man is now dead, but not at my hands.” He raised his eyes. “I was prepared to kill an innocent man because I was ordered to. No questions asked—strike, kill, vanish. At least, until I looked down into a pair of eyes that sent fire through a cold, dead soul. It was at that moment I realized I had become a true monster.”
“We can all change.” To everyone's shock, Jim approached Steven and touched the man's shoulder. “We all do things we regret, but in the end, we can change. I had a buddy who did things in Vietnam—drugs...drinking...he ended up firing blindly into a hut and killed an entire family. My buddy tried to kill himself. He then dedicated his life to helping Vietnamese orphans.”
Steven locked onto a pair of sincere, honest eyes that held no betrayal or deceit. Jim Cunningham was an honest man. “Well, Jim, I still have a long road before me. I may work for an organization that tries to right wrongs, but the organization I work for has been infiltrated by a lot of deadly snakes. A man doesn't know who he can trust. Therefore, I trust no one.”
Trust no one...the hospital...Steven was there...Ben was watching the parking lot...trust no one...Sarah and Peter discovered Steven's true identity...Steven didn't act upset or shocked...he even confessed a personal page from his past. As a matter of fact, maybe Steven has realized a deep, horrible secret that he's been expecting. I think I might know what that secret is. “You're being set up. This is all about you, isn't it?” Bethany suddenly asked Steven.
“Possible,” Steven allowed. “At first, I wasn't certain. But now that Sarah Garland—Spencer—and her friend Peter have my personal data, I'm suspecting that a target has been placed on my back. Someone is out to destroy me. My time has come. My personal data has been destroyed. The only way Sarah and her friend could have found me is if someone leaked my data from dead files...and trust me, Bethany, that task alone would require a team of brilliant minds.”
“Wayne Tyler?” Bethany asked.
Steven shook his head. “Wayne Tyler's objective seemed legitimate. Now I'm suspecting maybe Wayne Tyler was going to tell me something that he wasn't supposed to know. Up until this moment, I couldn't be certain. I had to give Sarah time to help me secure a correct path to approach.”
“What can we do to help?” Conrad spoke up.
“There's nothing you can do. If my suspicions are correct, all I can do is run and keep running.” Steven stood up. “If I'm wrong...I don't know. Rhonda Banks is dead. She was shot twice in the chest. That type of killing is a signature kill.”
“Where are you going?” Bethany asked Steven. Why am I so worried about this man? He's a killer...well, he was a killer. His safety should not be my concern. But I'm worried about him. There's something in his eyes...a desperate cry for absolution an redemption. I don't see a monster. I see a broken man.
“Your lives are in danger. We need to leave this place.”
“Come to Snow Falls,” Sarah ordered. “Conrad and I can help you.”
The sound of an approaching car caused Steven to yank out a hidden gun. “That's Ben's old car,” Jim said. “Ben followed the ambulance out. He's coming back now.”
Steven lowered his gun and studied the situation. Was it time to run? Could he trust the people standing before him? And what about Bethany Lights? Why was Steven drawn to Bethany? What was it about the beautiful woman that captured a tortured heart? “I can't run. There's nowhere to run. The only way I'll ever be safe is if I die.”
Bethany stared into Steven's eyes. The snowman is out there. The snowman wants Steven dead because if Steven dies...we all die. Somehow, Steven is keeping us all alive, and the snowman knows it. But what can anyone do? We're trapped in a snowstorm with no way out, and when this storm ends, we might all be dead.
Far away, a man named Tony Ricci stepped out of a hotel room and entered a wet parking lot. “Your time is short, Steven. Before I kill you, the body count will rise...starting with Bethany Lights.”
Chapter Twelve
Ben eyed Steven with deep suspicion. “You killed Richard Banks. You openly admit that you killed Richard Banks. That's cold-blooded murder.”
“Depends on the eye of the beholder,” Steven replied.
Ben reached his hand down toward his service gun. Steven snatched a deadly gun free from a hidden shoulder holster before the sheriff could complete his act. Ben froze, and Steven aimed his gun directly at Ben's chest.
“Shoot me,” Ben dared, offering a brave tone. There was no way Ben Nayes would turn yellow in front of Julie. A man either lived brave or died a coward.
“No.” Steven dropped his gun down onto the kitchen table and held up both of his hands. “Arrest me, Sheriff Nayes. I killed Richard Banks...but remember why.”
Ben met Steven's eyes—the eyes of a man who had, outside the laws of justice, killed Richard Banks. The question was, did Steven commit murder, or end the life of a rat preparing to torture innocent women? How many women were now free because of Steven Frosellan? How many women had been returned back to their husbands, children, parents. How many women would not endure years of abuse at the hands of soulless monsters? Did Steven Frosellan deserve to be thrown into a pair of handcuffs and hauled away to a cold jail cell?
