I’ve had very little time to look into Tate to decide what I’m going to do when I find him. It doesn’t help that Jesse now knows who he is, which means that if he disappears, Jesse might look my way, but it’s not like he’s going out of his way to do things lawfully.
Then again, if Tate ends up dead, Jesse might question why Whitaker would kill one of his own and start speculating who could have killed him.
Decisions. Decisions.
The real question is… what can I do to draw Whitaker out from where he’s hiding behind all of these amateur killers? Whitaker seems to only come out when he knows he can getaway with something, like Nadine’s murder. That took days of planning. He thought of every scenario, and he knew just how to get through it without suspicion. It was calculated and he pulled it off with finesse. Everything else has been done by his followers who aren’t as talented, and it shows.
The darkness inside of me bubbles up at the thought of it. At the thought of what I can do to Whitaker. What Iwantto do to him.
But now we have Jesse tossed into the mix. Why must Jesse fuck with my plans? What exactly does he plan on doing?
I drive into the subdivision, heading for Tate’s house. As I continue around the loop, I see Jesse’s car and pull in behind it and park. I don’t want there to be any sign of this car having driven past the house if anything happens, and Jesse must have had the same thought because he pulled over well before he reached Tate’s house.
I pull on gloves and a mask before I get out and check Jesse’s car, but he’s not present. I have my gun but decide that a gun is possibly a bit loud in these parts, depending on how things go.
The lights are on and there’s a car in Tate’s driveway that matches the license plate I pulled on him. The house is nice, tucked between other houses of equal value. One quick glance at his history told me that he got the money for his house after the death of his parents where he was a main suspect, but the police were unable to prove anything. There was a long article about it, but I only skimmed the beginning. It basically detailed how Tate likely killed his parents and is now living off his father’s cash.
The main question now is what my plan is. If I pull out my badge and arrest the man, how many steps have I skipped? Will my blackmail on Michaels be enough for him to turn a blind eye to the fact that I’ve informed him of nothing that is going on? That I’ve mysteriously ended up at Tate’s house after being framed for murder?
Michaels will likely just be pleased to have another in his grasp, but what does that mean for Lacey, who Whitaker could be holding? If he has her, will he kill her? Or is he lying just to push Jesse to the edge?
If he has her, I don’t think he will kill her. If he kills her as a punishment, he really will have no sway over Jesse. She’s too important of a piece.
He might hurt her, but she can live without a finger or a toe.
So I will just have to deal with Tate in a way that Jesse won’t suspect it’s me.
Sadly, I don’t have my knife, so my gun will have to do. I’ll go to the house and see what Jesse is up to. Hopefully Jesse will leave so I can take control of the situation.
I make my way toward Tate’s home, wondering if Jesse has chosen to confront the man inside his own home while completely unprepared. He’s being rash and should have consulted me. But then again, I have to believe he assumed I’d be rather pissed after being tossed to the police.
I check the area, but there are no cameras. It makes sense that Tate wouldn’t have them. If he’s caught, Whitaker wouldn’t want any video proof of anything that could connect him to any of the people he uses.
The neighboring houses might have something, but there’s a privacy fence that I follow along as I look in through the windows. I don’t see anyone home, even though the lights are on. Instead, there’s a trail of footprints through the snow that lead me to the backyard where the fencing stops to open up to a large pond that each of the houses in this circle surround. With the biting air, the pond is frozen over, moonlight glistening off it. It’s dark, but if I squint, it seems like I can see something moving out on the ice.
I walk out to the edge and look down at the way the snow dusting the top of the ice has been disturbed by two different sets of footprints.
I step down on the ice, testing it against my weight, but it seems pretty solid, so I set out on it, watching and listening as I go. Thankfully, the dusting of snow has made the top of it gritty, keeping me from sliding on it when I switch to a light jog, wanting to get close enough to see what’s happening before it’s too late.
Gabriel would be rather sad if Jesse died.
I quicken my pace when it becomes apparent that the ice isn’t going to crack beneath my weight. When I get close, I see a large man slam something into Jesse’s side. Jesse goes skidding an instant before what appears to be a bat smashes into the spot Jesse had just been. The ice cracks beneath the force, and without letting Jesse have a moment of reprieve, the man who must be Tate lunges at Jesse. Jesse can’t get back far enough before the man slams him down to the ice, right where the bat had hit. The sound of his head hitting the ice a second before I hear the ice cracking has me running. I didn’t want to give up my position, but at this point, I’m not sure I have the option to remain quiet.
“Police!” I shout, but it’s too late. The sound of the ice cracking tears through the silent night, and I watch as the water swallows Jesse, who looks stunned from the hit to his head.
The man whirls on me once Jesse disappears from sight. I pull out my gun, but what would shooting him solve? No, I want to keep him alive so I can torture him for information on Whitaker. All of my plans will go down the drain otherwise.
Tate rushes me, and I dodge the swing of his bat before using the butt of the gun to smash right into his Adam’s apple, but the way he slams into me twists my gun out of my hand, sending it flying. He falls forward as I slide across the ice andkneel down next to the hole in the water before reaching down for Jesse. The water is biting cold as I plunge my arm into the dark abyss. I can’t see Jesse in the darkness. I have no idea how deep this pond is, whether Jesse is conscious or unconscious. I wave my hand, feeling nothing but shards of ice floating along the surface. The ice beneath me begins to crack and I scramble back a moment before Tate’s bat smashes into the spot where I’d been kneeling.
I lunge forward, planning to drive him down, when I see him pull out a knife. He flips it around and aims it right for my abdomen, but I twist it, catching his wrist. He’s startled by the quick grab and drops his bat in an attempt to keep me from taking the knife.
The weakened ice cracks beneath his foot when it lands, and I see something in the light of the moon: Jesse trapped beneath the ice, banging against it, having no idea where the hole to his freedom sits. He’s disoriented, likely unable to find the way out on his own after having traveled so far from it.
I slam my foot down, trying to puncture the ice Tate has just cracked, but my distraction allows Tate to rush me. I draw back but mistake my step on the icy surface and my foot slips out from under me. He crashes into me and we both go down.
His knife shifts toward my side as he shoves me toward the hole, planning on pushing me under as well. I punch him in the side twice before I can get my arm up enough to go for his eyes. My leg hooks his while I reach back to where the ice floats in the hole Jesse had gone through. I grab one shard of it and as it digs into the palm of my hand, I ram it right into his eye. He screams and jerks back, and the darkness that runs rampant inside of me tells me to grab his knife, to slice his jugular open, to spill his blood all over the ice.
But every second I spend dealing with him is one less second of oxygen that Jesse has. I can hear him banging against the ice, desperate to get out.
