Poker night. The boys arrive at nine, bringing multiple cases of beer, raucous laughter and the smell of marijuana and too much cologne. They set up fort in the den, and when Nakia arrives home from work she goes straight to her bedroom without stopping to say hello. Larry comments on this, and Caleb shrugs,
“I dunno, she’s been bitchy like this ever since…you know.”
Like my name is a dirty word. Or he’s afraid to say what happened out loud.
Larry frowns. “You think she’s cracking? You think she’ll tell someone what happened?”
I drift closer to listen, nervous. Larry’s face is closed and cold, and I suddenly wonder exactly what he’s capable of.
“Don’t know,” Caleb mutters. “I don’t think she would. She’d be in just as much trouble as I would if anyone found out.”
“You have to be sure,” Larry says, matter-of-factly. “You can’t have any loose ends.”
Cold drops down my spine. What did that mean, “loose ends”? It was ridiculous mobster movie dialogue, but still…the way Larry said it…. Would he kill her if he thought she’d rat them out?
“She won’t be a loose end,” Caleb says. “She’ll get over it. She’s just never seen a dead body before, that’s all. It creeped her out.”
“Yeah, alright.” Larry picks up the cards and shuffles them rapidly. “Okay boys, prepare to have your asses kicked.”
I stand against the wall listening to them as they play poker, getting a little louder and a little rowdier with each beer. I’m bored, but if they say anything of importance I want to be there to hear it. My reward comes later, after the poker game is over and Larry is raking in the chips gleefully.
“So, when’s the job happening? Are the parents still going away?”
“Doesn’t seem likely anytime soon.” Caleb throws his cards down and picks up his beer. “They called Nakia the other day asking about her…”
He’s back to refusing to use my name. What a coward. I guess if he reduces me to less than a person he won’t feel bad about what he did.
One of the henchmen, Derrek, pulls a crushed box of cigarettes from his jeans and jams one in his mouth. “You got a lighter, Ben?”
He leans towards his friend, dragging the tip of his cigarette through the lighter’s orange flame. “So, what did the parents say? Do they think she ran away? Are they suspicious?”
Caleb shrugs. “Dunno, Nakia told them that the last time we saw her was the party, and that her knapsack is gone.”
“Good.” Larry sits forward. “It is gone, right?”
Caleb shifts in his chair, looking uncomfortable. “Well, not yet. I figured I would use her credit card, you know. I’ll take the ferry to Vancouver this weekend and use it in a couple places to buy food and stuff. If they check her credit card and see that they’ll think she just ran away.”
A slow smile spreads across Larry’s face. “Genius!” he crows, and Ben and Derrek laugh. “Just make sure you destroy it after that. And her other stuff too.”
Caleb nods, snatching a cigarette when Derrek offers one. “Thanks, man. You know, there’s some weird shit going on. Before you guys came over, I was standing in the kitchen and all the beer bottles on the counter just fell off it and smashed on the floor.” His eyes search Larry’s face, as if he’s hoping his friend will have some kind of explanation.
YOU ARE READING
Shoot Me Down
Horror"I am going to haunt you forever." That's the promise that Breanne makes her killer. He cannot dump her body in the river and simply have his crime washed away. The detectives assigned to her case can't seem to pin anything on him, and her parents a...
