Killer instinct tom walk.., p.9
Killer Instinct (Tom Walker Book 1), page 9
“Fentanyl?”
“Fentanyl is a strong synthetic opioid. Kind of like morphine, but much more powerful. Like fifty to a hundred times more powerful. In medicine, it’s used to treat pain, but the big thing right now is mixing it with oxycodone and making fake M30 pills that used to be all the rage before the crackdown. It was a real epidemic here in Eastern Kentucky. Lots of kids getting hooked and overdosing. Just like my . . .”
Leila went quiet. Walker knew she was thinking about her dad.
“Anyway,” she went on, “there have been a lot more overdoses lately because the fentanyl they are lacing the pills with is too strong. It’s just awful.” Leila’s face sank. “You don’t think . . . ?”
“There’s no way I can speculate. Not only am I no expert on drugs, I don’t even know what I do for a living.”
“Yeah, sorry. And here you are sitting with a stranger about to go through your personal things. Must be such an odd feeling.”
Walker squared up to her. “Why are you helping me? You don’t owe me anything. All I can do is cause you trouble. You’ve already lied to two police officers for me.”
“One police officer,” Leila said, flashing a smile. “My brother doesn’t count. And to be honest, Andy doesn’t really either. Trust me, he won’t be coming after me with what happened between us.”
That sounded like a can of worms Walker didn’t want to open.
“But, to answer your question of why I’m helping you,” Leila said. “I’m not really sure. My best friend and therapist would tell you it’s because I couldn’t save my dad, so now I’m trying to get a do-over by helping you. Maybe you should talk to her. She might have some memory tricks up her sleeve.”
“I’m sure I need therapy, but . . . probably best not to involve anyone else. I have a feeling knowing about me is going to be a very complicated thing soon.”
They were quiet as they considered Walker’s situation. He used the silence to reach into his bag and pull out a handful of small black leather-bound notebooks. Each of them had a thin black elastic strap that held them closed. He set four of them on the end table next to the lamp, keeping one in his hands. He pulled the elastic strap over the leather, releasing the pages. The book was filled from cover to cover with black ink scribbles. Walker turned the book toward Leila and fanned the pages for her to see.
“Wow. That’s a lot of writing. It’s crazy to think you spent so much time logging things in there and have no memory of it. Are you nervous about what it says?”
Walker thought for a moment as he fanned the pages with his thumbs. Looking at all the documented thoughts of a stranger. Himself.
“I’m not sure nervous is the word. Afraid might be more fitting.”
“Afraid? Of what you’ll find?”
Walker looked up into Leila’s brown eyes. “Who. Afraid of who I’ll find.”
Leila didn’t need more explanation.
Walker thumbed to the first page in the notebook. At the top of the lined page was a box meant for a date. Instead of a date, all that was written was the number seven. Below that, the writing began. Walker didn’t want to read it, but he didn’t really have a choice.
“You don’t have to read it out loud,” Leila said. “And I can give you some privacy. This is personal. Feel free to keep it that way.”
“Thank you. But I’m not sure I really have anything to hide from you at this point,” he said, then looked back down at the page. “Just a number seven at the top. Maybe I was numbering the order of the notebooks?”
Leila shrugged. “Makes sense.”
Walker cleared his throat and began reading: After watching Omar fall to the ground, I stood over him, covered in his blood.
Walker took a deep breath and looked up from the notebook. Leila’s mouth was hanging open. They had no idea what to expect from the notebooks, but Walker felt the same on the inside as Leila looked on the outside.
Walker went back to the writing: The room was filled with sounds—the air conditioner was running, cars passing by on the street just outside, the blood pulsing onto the floor from the opening I’d just carved in Omar’s neck—but I only heard the thud of my own beating heart. It wasn’t racing. It wasn’t beating any faster than if I was sitting on a patio sipping a cup of coffee. And that’s what scared me. It’s what had always frightened me about myself. I wasn’t human. How could I be? So calm in such a ferocious and violent situation. How did I get here?
Walker was now at the end of the first page. Rather than turning over to the next, he closed the notebook. He didn’t look up. Unlike the man describing himself in the notebook, Walker’s heart was racing. Could he really have been writing this about himself?
“Maybe . . .” Leila broke the silence. “Maybe you just wanted to be a writer. And you are just telling a story here.”
Walker didn’t look up. He stared blankly at the black cover of the notebook. Maybe he did want to be a writer. When he was growing up, he often used to find a quiet place to write some poetry. He’d always voraciously read any mystery novel he could get his hands on. Walker wanted to believe this theory. But even if it were true, that he was just telling a story, he could feel in his bones that it had been written from experience.
Tom Walker was a monster.
Evan Marshall too.
And possibly many other aliases, all the same. He didn’t have memory of these things . . . but he knew.
Leila’s phone began ringing. Both of them jumped.
“Hello?” Leila answered. “Yes, this is she . . . what?”
Walker looked up and saw a look of horror on Leila’s face.
“ICU? Is she okay?” Leila stood. “I’m on my way!”
Walker got up from the couch. Leila ended the call.
“It’s my niece,” she said, breathless. “She’s OD’d. I have to go to the hospital.”
Leila began gathering her things and throwing them into her purse.
“Thank you for all your help,” Walker said. “I’ll see myself out.”
Leila stopped for a second. “I don’t have time for this right now. Just stay and get some rest. Keep the door locked. Don’t go anywhere; you’ll only make things worse for yourself.”
“Yeah, no, I’ll be fine. Just go. I hope she’s okay.”
Leila stopped at the door and looked back at Walker. “Listen, I know we’re strangers. But we’re kind of in a mess here together. Maybe we can help each other out. So, really, don’t leave.”
“I won’t. Go. Go take care of your family. Don’t worry about me or even what’s happening on your property. We’ll figure it out.”
Leila gave a faltering smile, then walked out the door. Walker heard her use the key to lock the door. He felt a little light-headed, so he sat back down on the couch. He glanced over at the stack of notebooks as he heard Leila pull away in her Jeep. He wasn’t up for any more stories at the moment, so he decided to lie down for a bit.
But the stories came anyway. In the form of nightmares. And he caught a glimpse of Omar’s face in his dreams just before he cut the man’s throat, just like the notebook had said. Walker didn’t know it yet, but his first memory had just come back to him. The reality he was hoping to wake up to was nothing more than a nightmare he’d been living since he left his foster home as a teenager. The question to come was, was it a nightmare for him? Or was he the nightmare for everyone else?
18
Leila’s house was quiet. So much so that Walker had finally been able to relax and fall into a deep sleep. However, what awaited him in sleep was anything but relaxing.
Walker stood silent in the driving rain. Visibility was minimal. This would make it even easier to get the job done undetected. His target had been setting up for a barbecue, but the rain forced his family inside, making the assassination less messy. The clouds were dark overhead, the kind of clouds that make five in the evening look more like nine o’clock at night. Walker could see the family through the oversize window on the second story of the house. They were gathering at the dinner table that overlooked the backyard. They were waiting on Daddy to bring the food. The daddy they thought worked hard all week at his consulting job to pay for this beautiful home in the Hamptons.
Walker knew better.
This was one of the few assignments he’d had in the United States in his long career. He had considered going home to Kentucky when he’d finished, but he’d already been assigned a rogue assassin staying in Greece who needed to be dealt with. Besides, there was nothing more than bad memories back in his home state, and enemies never sleep. From the outside looking in, as Mark Johnson flipped burgers from beneath his umbrella, he didn’t look anything like an enemy. However, Andrey Sidorov, a Russian spy who’d just managed to kill a US Senator with a paring knife, was pretty good at disguises.
Walker would normally find a spot in a tree or wait to watch a neighbor’s pattern to get a good shot off from their home when they left. But his boss wanted this done in a hurry, and he wanted it to look like an accident. Something about Russian-American foreign affairs. Walker didn’t get involved with the politics. He was the man they sent to kill the killers, yet in comparison he would still consider the politicians to be the real down-and-dirty players.
Walker heard the car he’d been waiting for and looked back over his shoulder at the front of the house. The pizza he’d ordered for Andrey Sidorov’s family had just pulled up in a maroon Nissan Altima. Walker turned back to his target. Sidorov was pulling the first burger off the grill. Over Sidorov’s shoulder, Walker watched something get the family’s attention. The delivery person had just rung the doorbell.
Showtime.
Walker pulled his suppressed Smith and Wesson 43 C from inside his coat. He chose the light .22 caliber round because he only wanted to penetrate the propane tank and still be able to find the round. The family had all gone to see who was at the door. It was time. Walker raised the gun, stared down the sights, and pulled the trigger when the nose was hovering over the propane tank. He knew the twenty-pound propane tank wouldn’t explode from the round he fired. But he did know that when the round penetrated the tank, the propane would blow up through the fire in the grill, disguising his shot as a very unfortunate grilling accident.
The propane tank made a loud pop when hit. But it was the flame that was the star of the show. Walker hadn’t expected it to flame so much and for so long. As Sidorov was blown to his back, writhing in pain, Walker bent down and picked up his shell casing from the bullet he fired and placed it in his pocket. The family would be back at the window soon, so now he needed to hurry.
Walker holstered his gun and rushed forward. The fire had finally stopped as the propane ran dry, but he could see through the rain that half of Sidorov’s face had been melted. Walker reached down and grabbed the long-pronged grill fork and moved past the grill. With his right hand he pulled the only other tool he’d brought with him from his coat pocket. A handheld metal detector wand.
Judging by the angle the bullet had traveled through the tank, it should be lodged in the dirt near Sidorov’s feet, who was now on his back shouting in pain. Walker toggled on the power to the wand and waved it over the ground. On his third pass, he got a blip. The ground was wet, so it was easy to fish the bullet from the mud. He picked up the propane tank and turned it to where the bullet had entered. He pounded down on it twice with the butt of the pot fork, making it too big to look like a bullet had been there. The other side of the tank was blown out, so no worries there.
That was the last of the evidence; now it was time to finish the job. His escape route was clear: he would walk right beneath the window of the dining room and around the house into the adjacent woods. Probably as the family was discovering the dead man they called Dad from the window above him. If they only knew the monster he really was.
Sidorov actually made it to a seated position, directly facing Walker. But he couldn’t see his killer. The flame from the tank had made sure of that. Now it was time for Walker to make sure nothing else was working on the Russian spy. He walked forward, and just as he was beside him, Walker reached back, then rammed the pot fork forward, both prongs sinking deep into the man’s neck—
Walker shot up from lying on the couch. He was drenched in sweat and breathing wildly. The room was pitch black, and he frantically tried to regain his wits. That’s when the sound that woke him started again. A loud banging at the door.
“Leila? Leila, if you’re there, open up!”
Leila.
It all came back to Walker upon hearing the man say her name. He was back in the world of strangers, where he didn’t know who or what he really was. Except he did. And that dream, which he sensed was one of his memories coming back to him, told him exactly what he didn’t want to know.
“Leila? You there?” The man’s muffled shout came again from outside the front door. “I tried calling, but you didn’t answer. It’s Andy. I need to talk to your friend.”
Walker stood from the couch and walked over to the door. He heard the sheriff’s radio squawk. A woman’s voice followed. “Sheriff, we have a report of a stranger in the Walmart parking lot. Two people have called in creeped out. Could be your guy. Want me to send a patrol car?”
“No need. I’ll go check it out.”
Walker was waiting for him to leave, but instead, Andy’s cell phone began ringing.
“Larry, I was about to call you,” Andy answered.
There was quiet for a moment. Andy didn’t have the phone on speaker, so Walker couldn’t hear what Leila’s brother was saying.
“Wait, calm down,” Andy said. “Take a breath. I can’t understand you. What are you saying happened to your daughter?”
Leila’s niece. Walker knew they were talking about the overdose.
“Listen, you’ve got to pull it together, Larry.” A pause. “Yeah, I hear what you’re saying, and I’m real sorry about your daughter, but I don’t have enough information to make an arrest. Much less a warrant to do so.”
Andy paused to listen to Larry. Walker’s mind jumped back to the police officer who was down at the equipment shed talking about the car accident and the cartel. Walker obviously didn’t know what was going on inside or beneath that equipment shed, but if the cartel was involved, it had to be drugs. Walker had thought the officer speaking with the Mexican men sounded like Larry, but from the way the phone conversation was going with Andy, it sounded like Larry was trying to find out who was dealing the drugs, not in on making them himself. Larry and Andy had a similar way of speaking, same cadence, same tone; maybe it was the sheriff’s car and voice he’d heard. He was mad at himself for not getting a better look. He just wasn’t in position to take the chance of being seen. Being wanted for murder made him reluctant to take that risk.
“Listen . . .” Andy started talking again, but he quickly trailed off as he walked away. That was all the information Walker was going to get at that point. The car door shut, and Walker peeked out the window as the patrol car pulled away. He let out a sigh of relief. Relief that was half from the nightmare he’d had and half from wondering what the sheriff wanted with him. Both weren’t good.
Before he could pull himself together, he heard another vehicle approaching the house. He checked the window again and saw a vehicle shaped like Leila’s Jeep pull in from the opposite direction the sheriff had driven away in. Walker knew it was time for him to make his exit. Whatever it was the sheriff wanted could only be about what happened in that car accident. And if Walker really was in that car, and was really responsible for what happened to those men, he had to disappear.
That was his thought before he watched Leila in the yellow light of the front porch. Her figure walked around the hood of her Jeep, then hunched over it. Her head rested on her folded arms as her back repeatedly rose and fell. He could tell she was sobbing.
He would console her. Then he would leave. There was no room for anything else.
19
Walker took one more look in the direction the sheriff went, then opened the front door. Leila didn’t move to look up, but he could hear her sobbing. The sticky summer night enveloped Walker like a warm, wet blanket. He walked down the porch steps and over to Leila. Walker had never been with a woman before his current memory bank stopped at fifteen, so he had no idea if he had a way with them as a man. However, he had plenty of experience comforting a suffering woman, as he did it many times with his foster mother whenever she took a solid beating.
Walker knew that less was more. Let her know you’re there for her, but let her make the decision to engage. He didn’t say anything when he made it to Leila; he simply rested his hand on her shoulder. She took a sharp inhale. Her lungs sputtered from the emotion. Her second breath was less shaky. She placed her hand on top of his and gave it a squeeze. Her palms were hot and sweaty.
Leila rose from her slumped position. “She’s dead, Tom. My niece is dead.”
Leila’s face was glistening in the yellow light. Her mascara trickled with the tears from her left eye. Walker wiped away the mascara with his thumb.
“I’m sorry.”
There was nothing else to say. He was a stranger in her world, but she was looking for comfort from somewhere. Leila reached up and held his wrist as he wiped her tears; she stared at him with watery eyes.
“One hell of a day, huh?” Leila deflected the awkward moment with humor.
“One for the books,” Walker agreed.
Leila dropped his hand and turned away. She found the three-quarter moon hovering above the trees in her driveway. She stared for a moment.
“I went to her house after I left the hospital. My niece, Maya. She doesn’t live with my brother. She lives with her mom. She never lets us see Maya. Long story for another day. Anyway, no one was home, so I let myself in.”
Leila stopped herself and turned toward Walker. “I’m sorry. We literally just met, and I’m here trying to share the intimacies of my currently messed-up life.”
“You’re fine. I’m a good listener.”
“Fentanyl is a strong synthetic opioid. Kind of like morphine, but much more powerful. Like fifty to a hundred times more powerful. In medicine, it’s used to treat pain, but the big thing right now is mixing it with oxycodone and making fake M30 pills that used to be all the rage before the crackdown. It was a real epidemic here in Eastern Kentucky. Lots of kids getting hooked and overdosing. Just like my . . .”
Leila went quiet. Walker knew she was thinking about her dad.
“Anyway,” she went on, “there have been a lot more overdoses lately because the fentanyl they are lacing the pills with is too strong. It’s just awful.” Leila’s face sank. “You don’t think . . . ?”
“There’s no way I can speculate. Not only am I no expert on drugs, I don’t even know what I do for a living.”
“Yeah, sorry. And here you are sitting with a stranger about to go through your personal things. Must be such an odd feeling.”
Walker squared up to her. “Why are you helping me? You don’t owe me anything. All I can do is cause you trouble. You’ve already lied to two police officers for me.”
“One police officer,” Leila said, flashing a smile. “My brother doesn’t count. And to be honest, Andy doesn’t really either. Trust me, he won’t be coming after me with what happened between us.”
That sounded like a can of worms Walker didn’t want to open.
“But, to answer your question of why I’m helping you,” Leila said. “I’m not really sure. My best friend and therapist would tell you it’s because I couldn’t save my dad, so now I’m trying to get a do-over by helping you. Maybe you should talk to her. She might have some memory tricks up her sleeve.”
“I’m sure I need therapy, but . . . probably best not to involve anyone else. I have a feeling knowing about me is going to be a very complicated thing soon.”
They were quiet as they considered Walker’s situation. He used the silence to reach into his bag and pull out a handful of small black leather-bound notebooks. Each of them had a thin black elastic strap that held them closed. He set four of them on the end table next to the lamp, keeping one in his hands. He pulled the elastic strap over the leather, releasing the pages. The book was filled from cover to cover with black ink scribbles. Walker turned the book toward Leila and fanned the pages for her to see.
“Wow. That’s a lot of writing. It’s crazy to think you spent so much time logging things in there and have no memory of it. Are you nervous about what it says?”
Walker thought for a moment as he fanned the pages with his thumbs. Looking at all the documented thoughts of a stranger. Himself.
“I’m not sure nervous is the word. Afraid might be more fitting.”
“Afraid? Of what you’ll find?”
Walker looked up into Leila’s brown eyes. “Who. Afraid of who I’ll find.”
Leila didn’t need more explanation.
Walker thumbed to the first page in the notebook. At the top of the lined page was a box meant for a date. Instead of a date, all that was written was the number seven. Below that, the writing began. Walker didn’t want to read it, but he didn’t really have a choice.
“You don’t have to read it out loud,” Leila said. “And I can give you some privacy. This is personal. Feel free to keep it that way.”
“Thank you. But I’m not sure I really have anything to hide from you at this point,” he said, then looked back down at the page. “Just a number seven at the top. Maybe I was numbering the order of the notebooks?”
Leila shrugged. “Makes sense.”
Walker cleared his throat and began reading: After watching Omar fall to the ground, I stood over him, covered in his blood.
Walker took a deep breath and looked up from the notebook. Leila’s mouth was hanging open. They had no idea what to expect from the notebooks, but Walker felt the same on the inside as Leila looked on the outside.
Walker went back to the writing: The room was filled with sounds—the air conditioner was running, cars passing by on the street just outside, the blood pulsing onto the floor from the opening I’d just carved in Omar’s neck—but I only heard the thud of my own beating heart. It wasn’t racing. It wasn’t beating any faster than if I was sitting on a patio sipping a cup of coffee. And that’s what scared me. It’s what had always frightened me about myself. I wasn’t human. How could I be? So calm in such a ferocious and violent situation. How did I get here?
Walker was now at the end of the first page. Rather than turning over to the next, he closed the notebook. He didn’t look up. Unlike the man describing himself in the notebook, Walker’s heart was racing. Could he really have been writing this about himself?
“Maybe . . .” Leila broke the silence. “Maybe you just wanted to be a writer. And you are just telling a story here.”
Walker didn’t look up. He stared blankly at the black cover of the notebook. Maybe he did want to be a writer. When he was growing up, he often used to find a quiet place to write some poetry. He’d always voraciously read any mystery novel he could get his hands on. Walker wanted to believe this theory. But even if it were true, that he was just telling a story, he could feel in his bones that it had been written from experience.
Tom Walker was a monster.
Evan Marshall too.
And possibly many other aliases, all the same. He didn’t have memory of these things . . . but he knew.
Leila’s phone began ringing. Both of them jumped.
“Hello?” Leila answered. “Yes, this is she . . . what?”
Walker looked up and saw a look of horror on Leila’s face.
“ICU? Is she okay?” Leila stood. “I’m on my way!”
Walker got up from the couch. Leila ended the call.
“It’s my niece,” she said, breathless. “She’s OD’d. I have to go to the hospital.”
Leila began gathering her things and throwing them into her purse.
“Thank you for all your help,” Walker said. “I’ll see myself out.”
Leila stopped for a second. “I don’t have time for this right now. Just stay and get some rest. Keep the door locked. Don’t go anywhere; you’ll only make things worse for yourself.”
“Yeah, no, I’ll be fine. Just go. I hope she’s okay.”
Leila stopped at the door and looked back at Walker. “Listen, I know we’re strangers. But we’re kind of in a mess here together. Maybe we can help each other out. So, really, don’t leave.”
“I won’t. Go. Go take care of your family. Don’t worry about me or even what’s happening on your property. We’ll figure it out.”
Leila gave a faltering smile, then walked out the door. Walker heard her use the key to lock the door. He felt a little light-headed, so he sat back down on the couch. He glanced over at the stack of notebooks as he heard Leila pull away in her Jeep. He wasn’t up for any more stories at the moment, so he decided to lie down for a bit.
But the stories came anyway. In the form of nightmares. And he caught a glimpse of Omar’s face in his dreams just before he cut the man’s throat, just like the notebook had said. Walker didn’t know it yet, but his first memory had just come back to him. The reality he was hoping to wake up to was nothing more than a nightmare he’d been living since he left his foster home as a teenager. The question to come was, was it a nightmare for him? Or was he the nightmare for everyone else?
18
Leila’s house was quiet. So much so that Walker had finally been able to relax and fall into a deep sleep. However, what awaited him in sleep was anything but relaxing.
Walker stood silent in the driving rain. Visibility was minimal. This would make it even easier to get the job done undetected. His target had been setting up for a barbecue, but the rain forced his family inside, making the assassination less messy. The clouds were dark overhead, the kind of clouds that make five in the evening look more like nine o’clock at night. Walker could see the family through the oversize window on the second story of the house. They were gathering at the dinner table that overlooked the backyard. They were waiting on Daddy to bring the food. The daddy they thought worked hard all week at his consulting job to pay for this beautiful home in the Hamptons.
Walker knew better.
This was one of the few assignments he’d had in the United States in his long career. He had considered going home to Kentucky when he’d finished, but he’d already been assigned a rogue assassin staying in Greece who needed to be dealt with. Besides, there was nothing more than bad memories back in his home state, and enemies never sleep. From the outside looking in, as Mark Johnson flipped burgers from beneath his umbrella, he didn’t look anything like an enemy. However, Andrey Sidorov, a Russian spy who’d just managed to kill a US Senator with a paring knife, was pretty good at disguises.
Walker would normally find a spot in a tree or wait to watch a neighbor’s pattern to get a good shot off from their home when they left. But his boss wanted this done in a hurry, and he wanted it to look like an accident. Something about Russian-American foreign affairs. Walker didn’t get involved with the politics. He was the man they sent to kill the killers, yet in comparison he would still consider the politicians to be the real down-and-dirty players.
Walker heard the car he’d been waiting for and looked back over his shoulder at the front of the house. The pizza he’d ordered for Andrey Sidorov’s family had just pulled up in a maroon Nissan Altima. Walker turned back to his target. Sidorov was pulling the first burger off the grill. Over Sidorov’s shoulder, Walker watched something get the family’s attention. The delivery person had just rung the doorbell.
Showtime.
Walker pulled his suppressed Smith and Wesson 43 C from inside his coat. He chose the light .22 caliber round because he only wanted to penetrate the propane tank and still be able to find the round. The family had all gone to see who was at the door. It was time. Walker raised the gun, stared down the sights, and pulled the trigger when the nose was hovering over the propane tank. He knew the twenty-pound propane tank wouldn’t explode from the round he fired. But he did know that when the round penetrated the tank, the propane would blow up through the fire in the grill, disguising his shot as a very unfortunate grilling accident.
The propane tank made a loud pop when hit. But it was the flame that was the star of the show. Walker hadn’t expected it to flame so much and for so long. As Sidorov was blown to his back, writhing in pain, Walker bent down and picked up his shell casing from the bullet he fired and placed it in his pocket. The family would be back at the window soon, so now he needed to hurry.
Walker holstered his gun and rushed forward. The fire had finally stopped as the propane ran dry, but he could see through the rain that half of Sidorov’s face had been melted. Walker reached down and grabbed the long-pronged grill fork and moved past the grill. With his right hand he pulled the only other tool he’d brought with him from his coat pocket. A handheld metal detector wand.
Judging by the angle the bullet had traveled through the tank, it should be lodged in the dirt near Sidorov’s feet, who was now on his back shouting in pain. Walker toggled on the power to the wand and waved it over the ground. On his third pass, he got a blip. The ground was wet, so it was easy to fish the bullet from the mud. He picked up the propane tank and turned it to where the bullet had entered. He pounded down on it twice with the butt of the pot fork, making it too big to look like a bullet had been there. The other side of the tank was blown out, so no worries there.
That was the last of the evidence; now it was time to finish the job. His escape route was clear: he would walk right beneath the window of the dining room and around the house into the adjacent woods. Probably as the family was discovering the dead man they called Dad from the window above him. If they only knew the monster he really was.
Sidorov actually made it to a seated position, directly facing Walker. But he couldn’t see his killer. The flame from the tank had made sure of that. Now it was time for Walker to make sure nothing else was working on the Russian spy. He walked forward, and just as he was beside him, Walker reached back, then rammed the pot fork forward, both prongs sinking deep into the man’s neck—
Walker shot up from lying on the couch. He was drenched in sweat and breathing wildly. The room was pitch black, and he frantically tried to regain his wits. That’s when the sound that woke him started again. A loud banging at the door.
“Leila? Leila, if you’re there, open up!”
Leila.
It all came back to Walker upon hearing the man say her name. He was back in the world of strangers, where he didn’t know who or what he really was. Except he did. And that dream, which he sensed was one of his memories coming back to him, told him exactly what he didn’t want to know.
“Leila? You there?” The man’s muffled shout came again from outside the front door. “I tried calling, but you didn’t answer. It’s Andy. I need to talk to your friend.”
Walker stood from the couch and walked over to the door. He heard the sheriff’s radio squawk. A woman’s voice followed. “Sheriff, we have a report of a stranger in the Walmart parking lot. Two people have called in creeped out. Could be your guy. Want me to send a patrol car?”
“No need. I’ll go check it out.”
Walker was waiting for him to leave, but instead, Andy’s cell phone began ringing.
“Larry, I was about to call you,” Andy answered.
There was quiet for a moment. Andy didn’t have the phone on speaker, so Walker couldn’t hear what Leila’s brother was saying.
“Wait, calm down,” Andy said. “Take a breath. I can’t understand you. What are you saying happened to your daughter?”
Leila’s niece. Walker knew they were talking about the overdose.
“Listen, you’ve got to pull it together, Larry.” A pause. “Yeah, I hear what you’re saying, and I’m real sorry about your daughter, but I don’t have enough information to make an arrest. Much less a warrant to do so.”
Andy paused to listen to Larry. Walker’s mind jumped back to the police officer who was down at the equipment shed talking about the car accident and the cartel. Walker obviously didn’t know what was going on inside or beneath that equipment shed, but if the cartel was involved, it had to be drugs. Walker had thought the officer speaking with the Mexican men sounded like Larry, but from the way the phone conversation was going with Andy, it sounded like Larry was trying to find out who was dealing the drugs, not in on making them himself. Larry and Andy had a similar way of speaking, same cadence, same tone; maybe it was the sheriff’s car and voice he’d heard. He was mad at himself for not getting a better look. He just wasn’t in position to take the chance of being seen. Being wanted for murder made him reluctant to take that risk.
“Listen . . .” Andy started talking again, but he quickly trailed off as he walked away. That was all the information Walker was going to get at that point. The car door shut, and Walker peeked out the window as the patrol car pulled away. He let out a sigh of relief. Relief that was half from the nightmare he’d had and half from wondering what the sheriff wanted with him. Both weren’t good.
Before he could pull himself together, he heard another vehicle approaching the house. He checked the window again and saw a vehicle shaped like Leila’s Jeep pull in from the opposite direction the sheriff had driven away in. Walker knew it was time for him to make his exit. Whatever it was the sheriff wanted could only be about what happened in that car accident. And if Walker really was in that car, and was really responsible for what happened to those men, he had to disappear.
That was his thought before he watched Leila in the yellow light of the front porch. Her figure walked around the hood of her Jeep, then hunched over it. Her head rested on her folded arms as her back repeatedly rose and fell. He could tell she was sobbing.
He would console her. Then he would leave. There was no room for anything else.
19
Walker took one more look in the direction the sheriff went, then opened the front door. Leila didn’t move to look up, but he could hear her sobbing. The sticky summer night enveloped Walker like a warm, wet blanket. He walked down the porch steps and over to Leila. Walker had never been with a woman before his current memory bank stopped at fifteen, so he had no idea if he had a way with them as a man. However, he had plenty of experience comforting a suffering woman, as he did it many times with his foster mother whenever she took a solid beating.
Walker knew that less was more. Let her know you’re there for her, but let her make the decision to engage. He didn’t say anything when he made it to Leila; he simply rested his hand on her shoulder. She took a sharp inhale. Her lungs sputtered from the emotion. Her second breath was less shaky. She placed her hand on top of his and gave it a squeeze. Her palms were hot and sweaty.
Leila rose from her slumped position. “She’s dead, Tom. My niece is dead.”
Leila’s face was glistening in the yellow light. Her mascara trickled with the tears from her left eye. Walker wiped away the mascara with his thumb.
“I’m sorry.”
There was nothing else to say. He was a stranger in her world, but she was looking for comfort from somewhere. Leila reached up and held his wrist as he wiped her tears; she stared at him with watery eyes.
“One hell of a day, huh?” Leila deflected the awkward moment with humor.
“One for the books,” Walker agreed.
Leila dropped his hand and turned away. She found the three-quarter moon hovering above the trees in her driveway. She stared for a moment.
“I went to her house after I left the hospital. My niece, Maya. She doesn’t live with my brother. She lives with her mom. She never lets us see Maya. Long story for another day. Anyway, no one was home, so I let myself in.”
Leila stopped herself and turned toward Walker. “I’m sorry. We literally just met, and I’m here trying to share the intimacies of my currently messed-up life.”
“You’re fine. I’m a good listener.”
