The Devil Will Come by Justin Gustainis

Author:Justin Gustainis [Gustainis, Justin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: EDGE-Lite
Published: 2016-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

The Predators

Dan Bright waved to his daughter Shelly, who had just boarded the school bus and found a seat at the window. She waved back, but was then drawn into a conversation with two other fourth-graders sitting nearby. They were still conferring, solemn as diplomats, when the bus pulled away from the curb.

A few minutes later, Bright let himself in through the front door of his big, old house and walked down the length of the central hallway to the kitchen, from which the scents of breakfast still lingered.

His first step into the kitchen revealed that his wife Marilyn was still sitting at the dinette table, a cup of coffee in front of her. But something had changed: her posture, usually relaxed and lazy in the morning, had given way to tension and alertness.

Bright’s next step showed him why. There was a man sitting opposite his wife, a man with sunglasses and a hat and a gun.

The gun, a big automatic, was resting on the dinette table, its barrel lined up with the center of Marilyn Bright’s chest.

Bright stood perfectly still. The man glanced up, showing no surprise at Bright’s return. “Come on in,” he drawled. “Join the party.”

Before Bright could say anything, another male voice spoke from directly behind him: “Go on, sit down. You won’t be late for work. Hell, they’re not even expectin’ you ‘til around 9:30.”

As Bright walked stiffly over to the table, the first man said with a grin, “Yeah, ain’t that what they call banker’s hours?”

* * *

Louise Fitzsimmons fished a couple of Advil out of the bottle she kept in her desk and washed them down with a mouthful of lukewarm coffee. Every tree, flower and bush in town was apparently blooming this morning, and the pollen had Louise’s sinuses pounding like a jackhammer.

She tried to ignore the pain and concentrate on the computer printout in front of her. It was a record of the bank’s financial activity from the day before and Mister Bright always asked her for a brief summary as soon as he arrived in the morning. She checked the clock on her desk: just past 8:40. No need to hurry, then. It was Louise’s job as Assistant Manager to open up at 8:00, but the bank was closed to customers until 10:00, and Mister Bright never arrived before 9:30. There was plenty of time.

But half a minute later, as Louise looked up at the sound of the employees’ door opening, she realized that there was no time left at all, because Mister Bright, impossibly early, had come through that door and was headed straight for her office. Louise’s headache took a sudden turn for the worse.

Trailing along behind Mr. Bright was a man Louise had never seen before. The stranger wore a Panama hat and aviator-style sunglasses with a navy blue suit, and for an instant Louise flashed on an image of Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter from that movie she’d seen on HBO, but she banished the frivolous thought at once.

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