No Good Deed by James Swain

Author:James Swain [Swain, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542040488
Published: 2019-08-19T16:00:00+00:00

The elevator was on the blink. As he trotted up the stairs, he called Echo on his cell phone. She answered without saying a word. A baby cried in the background.

“This is Jon,” he said. “I’m coming up the stairs. What’s your apartment number?”

“You’re here?” she said, sounding surprised.

“Damn straight, I’m here. You need to leave soon. What’s the number?”

“Apartment 303. When you come out of the stairs, go left. I’ll be waiting for you.”

He took the stairs two at a time. At the third-floor landing he went left, and saw a shaft of light streaming out of a partially open door at the end of the hallway, which he ran toward. The floor was concrete, and his footsteps sounded like cannons going off. As he neared the door, it opened fully, and Echo greeted him with her baby in her arms. He was tiny, maybe six months old, with a head of black curls and dark, unblinking eyes. Seeing a stranger approach, he buried his head into his mother’s bosom.

Lancaster followed Echo into the apartment. Another woman sat on the floor in front of the TV, looking strung out, and he guessed she took care of the baby while Echo stripped at the club. The woman was a train wreck, with rotted teeth and sallow eyes, but he supposed it was better than leaving the kid alone.

Echo grabbed his wrist with her free hand, and pulled him toward the bedroom.

“We need to get out of here,” he said.

“Don’t you want to see the video of the girls?” she asked.

“You have it?”

“It’s on a private channel on YouTube. I’ll show you.”

The bedroom had a futon and a desk with a computer. A pile of dirty men’s clothes—Dexter’s, he assumed—lay heaped in a corner. Echo handed him her baby and got on the computer’s keyboard, which she handled like a pro. The computer had a separate hard drive that made a whirring sound as the screen came to life. YouTube allowed users to create private channels where unlisted videos could be shared with people who knew the link. The private channel that Echo pulled up had a large library. Based upon the titles, it appeared to be the property of the Outlaws motorcycle gang.

The kid gave him a mean stare, which he ignored. Bike Week had just finished in Daytona Beach, and the recent videos were of gang members attending the event. Echo scrolled down to an untitled video posted eight days earlier and clicked on it. The video started to play. Clutching the baby to his chest, he leaned in and peered at the screen.

It was in black and white, and was taken from a camera perched high above its subjects, possibly a ceiling mount. It showed the interior of a spacious kitchen with an island in its center. The kitchen had two sinks, two ovens, and an assortment of pots and pans dangling from metal hooks.

A small army of women were busy fixing a meal. Several diced vegetables on cutting boards, while others cut meat into bite-size chunks.

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