Just over a half hour later, Jared stood in shadow against the wall around Jones’s property. Jared checked the time on his phone. It was nearly midnight. The street in both directions was clear as far as he could see. It was very unlikely anyone home across the street would be able to see him over their properties’ walls.
Jared pulled on his gloves. He took a few steps away from the wall and then ran, jumped, caught two of the projecting fleur-de-lis atop the wall, and then vaulted up and over. Jared landed in a crouch, almost entirely concealed from view from the house by a tree and adjacent bushes. He waited, counting off the seconds.
Two minutes passed before he moved. Jones’s house was quiet. The yard lights were on. So too was the porch light. The soft glow through downstairs and upstairs windows showed that hall lights had been left on, but the other windows were dark.
He pulled the Ziploc baggie from his jacket pocket. He opened it, and then pulled off a glove with his teeth. Carefully, with forefinger and thumb, he pulled a hair some of the way from the baggie. The cool night air filled with the scent of flowers. She stood nearby, still nude, still marred by the violence that caused her death.
Jared whispered, “It’s time. I need you to shut off the alarm and unlock the door.”
“That won’t be easy,” she said.
“The code is star, four, zero, six, three, zero, star. Repeat it.”
She did, and added, “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You can. Focus on what he did to you. Focus on your pain, your fear.”
She looked down. Tears dropped from her yellowed eyes, but they vanished before they touched the ground.
“You’re almost done, Sharon,” Jared said, looking away from her grief. “After tonight, you can rest.”
The restless spirit of the murdered young lady nodded. She walked across the lawn, visible only to Jared. She cast no shadows. She had no motion that sensors could detect. The front door was no obstacle to her. She passed through it as easily as the night breeze passed through the tree branches. A few short minutes later, she passed back through the door, stood on the porch, and waved. Jared sprinted from the wall, across the lawn, up the few stairs between the columns onto the porch.
“Thank you,” he said, opening the door and stepping into the foyer. She followed as he closed the door. “Wait here.”
Sharon shook her head. “I have to see what happens.”
Jared sighed. The muscles in his shoulders and neck tensed. The headache would follow soon. A chandelier, set to its lowest setting, cast soft yellow light over the foyer. Almost silently, Jared walked across the oak hardwood floor to the circular rug underneath a round table. A crystal vase atop the table held fresh orchids. Jared set the vase on the floor, moved the table to the side, and sat down. Quietly, quickly, he stripped down to his briefs and then put his boots and gloves back on. He rolled the Ziploc baggie into a tight cylinder and slipped it into one boot. He unholstered the HK45CT and screwed the suppressor into place. He unsheathed the knife.
Jared climbed up the thickly carpeted, circular staircase to the second floor hall, the pistol in one hand, the knife in the other, walking past expensively framed photographs, most of them showing Jared in formal dress, hobnobbing with politicians, celebrities, and men and women of wealth and taste. Sharon was waiting for him. The light from the chandelier spilled up into the hallway, sending long shadows angling from floor to ceiling. A long rug ran the length of the hallway. The master bedroom door stood half open. The rug softened Jared’s footfalls.
Franklin Montgomery Allan Jones snored softly in his four-poster bed. Opposite the bed in front of the bay window looking out onto the balcony facing the backyard was a dark wood desk. A widescreen monitor attached to a laptop and speakers stood on the desk. Two high-backed, cushioned chairs flanked the desk. A golf bag full of clubs leaned against the wall behind one of the chairs. Built-in closets occupied the far wall. Next to them, French doors led to the balcony. In the far corner, an open door showed some of the master bath.
Sharon waited in the doorway. Jared crept around the bed. He set the pistol near the foot of the bed, shifted the knife into an icepick grip. Jared’s attack was quick. With his free hand, he grabbed Jones’s right wrist and shuffled backward, turning as he did so, jerking Jones from the bed onto the floor in front of the bathroom door. Bones in Jones’s wrist cracked. Jones cried out in pain and alarm. Instinctively, he curled into a ball to protect himself. Jared snatched the pistol from the bed and shot Jones through the left knee cap. Jones’s scream was much louder than the suppressed report of the firearm.
“Quiet!” Jared growled through clenched teeth.
Jones screamed again, and Jared lunged, landing across the older man’s chest, his knees pinning his arms to the floor. In his left hand, the knife slashed across Jones’s chin, opening a gash that bled profusely.
“I said, ‘Quiet’,” Jared repeated, aiming the point of the knife toward Jones’s right eye.
Jones choked back a third scream. All that remained of it was a strangled whimper. Jared could smell that Jones had soiled himself.
“I’m going to stand up,” Jared said. “If you attack me or try to escape, I’ll shoot you again. Nod if you understand me.”
Jones’s eyes, wide and glistening, looked up into Jared’s eyes. Jones had taken hundreds of depositions as a lawyer. He knew what a lie looked like. He knew what doubt looked like. He saw neither in Jared’s hard, arctic gaze. Jones nodded. When Jared stood up and backed away, the lawyer’s hands came up to his chin, came away covered in blood, then moved to his ruined knee.
“Wh-who are you?” Jones stuttered.
“Don’t talk. Listen. Nod if you understand me. Good.”
Jared jabbed the knife into the mattress, squatted, and pulled the rolled Ziploc baggie from his boot. Sharon stood at the foot of the bed. She was crying again.
“Tell him,” she said.
“I will,” Jared said. “He’ll know why before he dies.”
Jones gaped at the nearly naked man in his room. “Who are you–? Oh shit. You’re insane.”
Jared threw the baggie at Jones. It hit his chest, stuck to the blood that had poured from his chin.
“See that picture? That’s Sharon Washington. You killed her.”
Jones started trembling. He grabbed the baggie and tossed it away, recoiling from it.
“No!” Jones said, holding up his hands. “I didn’t! I –”
Jared shot Jones through the palm of the right hand. Jones screamed for several seconds before he regained a modicum of control. His breaths came in hard, huge gulps. The trembling increased. At the foot of the bed, Sharon turned away.
“You’re going into shock,” Jared said. “We don’t have time for lies. Where is Sharon’s necklace? Where’s the video? The truth, or I’ll use my knife on your face again.”
Through chattering teeth, in between sobs that convulsed his body, Jones said, “In the closet. There. There’s a safe.”
“Tell me the combination, Mr. Jones.”
A couple of minutes later, Jared crouched on the floor a few feet from Jones. He still held the pistol. On the floor in front of him was a silver chain with a pendant, a heart around a cross. An umarked CD in its case was next to the necklace.
“Do you know why I’m going to kill you?”
Jones nodded. He wept, a deep sobbing full of sorrow and fear.
“Close your eyes.”
Jones closed his eyes. Jared shot him once in the head and twice through the heart. He pulled the comforter from the bed and spread it over the body.
“You can look now.”
Sharon turned and looked at shape under the comforter. She smiled, but it was a sad smile. With a shaky hand, she pointed at the necklace still on the floor.
“You’re sister will get it,” Jared said. “I’ll mail it to her.”
“Will she be safe?”
Jared nodded. “There’s nothing to connect her to any of this.”
“Thank you,” Sharon said.
“You’re welcome.”
In between blinks of Jared’s eyes, Sharon vanished. The faintest scent of flowers lingered for a few more seconds. Jared sighed, closed his eyes, rolled his head in a circle, right shoulder to back to left shoulder, chin to chest. The headache had arrived in earnest.
He cleaned up in the shower, meticulously washing away the blood that had spattered on him from the knife work and close range pistol shots. He then wiped down the shower. He took the towel he used with him. Down the stairs, wet boots squishing, he put on his clothes. He had left the contents of the Ziploc baggie by Jones’s body. The baggie, wrapped around Jones’s toothbrush, was back in a jacket pocket. He tucked the CD and the necklace into the other pocket. He left the front door open. The housekeeper would arrive in a few hours. She’d discover the body and call the police.
Several minutes later, Jared was back behind the wheel of his car. The pain from the headache made spots swim before his eyes. He drove home, almost in a daze, the headlights of oncoming vehicles sending needles into his brain. He fell into a fitful sleep almost as soon as he flopped onto the sofa. Dreams full of blood and ghosts accompanied the drumbeat of pain in his skull.
Tags: fiction, Lilacs
