The Novellas by Burke Kealan Patrick

Author:Burke, Kealan Patrick [Burke, Kealan Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Elderlemon Press
Published: 2013-04-24T04:00:00+00:00

5

At the foot of the stairs, he stepped on the doll and gave a start when it emitted the sound of a woman quietly sobbing. He had no wish to give this further consideration and so stalked through the house until he had reached the living room and the sliding doors he had used to gain entry.

Wade was no idiot. He knew that walking out there with the cops on his tail was likely to be the last thing he ever did, at least as a free man. But he couldn’t stay here either. Not while there was someone hiding in the house who knew him, knew what he was and what he had done, someone who was having just the grandest time tormenting him with sideshow trickery. It all felt a little bit too predestined for his taste.

No. He was going, and he would just have to be careful once he crossed the threshold. He did not want to think about Cartwright and the money, and what it meant for his chances of a future. All that mattered now was getting gone.

Resolute, he stayed down and moved in a crouch to the curtains, parted them with a finger and felt his breath catch in his throat.

There were two cops in the yard, and they were heading toward the house, guns drawn.

"Great." Wade backtracked to the hall, then hurried into the kitchen where he flexed the fingers of his free hand, the sweat oozing from his pores, and tried to think. In seconds the cops would knock on the sliding door. After seeing the gate they wouldn’t be so easily persuaded that nothing was amiss. They would force the door and they’d have him.

Keep it together, man, he told himself. You’ve still got a weapon. You’re not done, yet.

But despite his own encouragement, he felt done.

Cartwright was gone.

The money was gone.

The pigs were at the back door and his hidey-hole was filled with spiders.

Check the front.

The rapping of hard knuckles against solid glass echoed through the house, each knock sending a jolt of electric fear up his spine.

Wade ran to the kitchen window, looked outside.

Two cruisers were parked at the curb, lights flashing. The trio of cops standing around them was the only sign of life on an uncannily empty street. If the sight of police hadn’t lured the curious out of their homes, then it was quite possible that nobody lived in them after all. It put him in mind of the fake homes filled with mannequins the military set up in the desert as targets for nuclear testing.

His head hurt. Things had gotten way more complicated than they should have been. Rob the bank, nobody gets hurt, split up and meet later to divvy up the score. That was it. A simple plan. Instead, people had died, victims of Cartwright’s itchy trigger finger, Wade was stuck in some kind of sick-joke carnival funhouse designed from blueprints straight out of his head, and now Cartwright was in custody and telling the cops…

Still looking out onto the street, he frowned.

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