68 Born to Make the Kill

“Why’d you do that you damn bastard?” Rudy asked, as Tony sat back down in the driver’s seat.

“She pissed me off,” Tony said glared out the windshield. “Would you rather I shot her instead?”

Rudy glared at him but Tony didn’t make eye contact. He began to twist so he could lean over the seat to check on Natalie, but before he turned enough, Tony shouted, “Eyes, forward, goddamn it. You can’t help her now. Find me new wheels.”

Rudy shook his head and turned back to the front. Except for the sound of sniffles from the floor in the backseat and the rain’s thump on the roof of the truck, there was silence.

After a few minutes, though, Rudy said, “Look.”

“Right on time.”



Jose` Osorio had driven for several minutes on his way to work at the Grand Coulee Dam. He thought about his daughter Rosa and how it seemed like only yesterday he held her in his arms for the first time. Now three years had passed. She was such a daddy’s girl and he loved every minute of it. This afternoon, he and his family had celebrated her birthday. The vision of her surprised face when his wife, Yolanda, wiped white cake icing on her nose rather than feed it to her anxious mouth would be with him for the rest of his life and he had the picture to remind himself of the moment when his mind got too feeble to do it on its own.

Ahead of him about a mile he could see another vehicle every time he came to the top of a rise in the road. As he descended, it would disappear again.



Tony made sure the pistol was tucked into the waistband of his jeans under the poorly fitting tan tweed jacket he hadn’t taken off since he left California. He stepped out of the truck and waved as the car approached.



Nancy and Steve Mulden had finished a late lunch and decided to take a drive in their Toyota RAV4. Tomorrow they would hitch it to the back of their RV and begin to head toward Imperial County on the Mexican border in Southern California—“Where the sun heads for the winter” as their slogan states. But today, even though the shifting layers of gray clouds threatened rain, they wanted to enjoy a drive in the nearby Cascade Mountains to see the last visages of the fall colors.

They had driven about ten miles from their RV when the rain got heavier. Steve switched the wipers from intermittent to full-time and turned on the headlights.

“This keeps up and we’re going to be watching the fall colors from inside here,” he said and turned toward his wife.

“We’ll just make the best of it,” she said with a smile, always ready to put a positive spin on everything. It was one of her more endearing qualities and one of the many reasons Steve felt happy to have had her in his life for the last forty-three years.

Just ahead of them a man stepped from a burgundy pickup and waved his arms like they wanted him to stop. Steve applied the brake.

“Don’t stop,” Nancy said. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know but something tells me this doesn’t feel right. Just keep on going.”

“Sounds pretty heartless, poor guy out here in the rain, possibly broken down, but if you say so.” He stepped on the gas pedal again and powered past the man in the road.



Tony stood in the middle of the road while the rain pattered on his dark greasy hair, and flipped them the finger as he watched them go up the rise and out of sight.

“Go to Hell,” he shouted.

He turned back toward the open driver’s door of the Ram and saw another vehicle approach from the same direction as the RAV4. As he had just done, he waved, and the car slowed to a stop.

“Everything okay?” Jose` Osorio asked.

Tony walked across the road and stooped down to look into the window of the Subaru. It had one occupant.

“Is now,” he said in a conversational tone.

Tony pulled the gun out and pointed it at the man. “Out of the car!”

The man’s eyes fixed on the silver barrel, but without further instruction, he opened the door. As he stood, he threw his arms up in surrender.

“Please don’t shoot. I don’t want no trouble.”

“Tain’t no trouble at all,” Tony said, “Over here.”

Tony nudged the pistol into his side and forced him toward the rear of the car. As they began to walk, he waved at Rudy to move everything over to the new ride.



Rudy jumped out and opened the back door. Natalie, still on the floor, had blood around her nose and upper lip, and tear stains on her face. To get her out he had to lift her body to the seat and then he was able to slide her out the side door. He took her in his arms, carried her to the car and placed her on the back seat.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he laid her down, among the children’s toys, stale French fries and an infant seat, “really sorry about all of this.”



Tony lead Jose` around the back of the car and into the field. He prodded him in the back ever forward with the muzzle of the .357. They were about thirty feet from the road when Tony made him kneel down on the muddy ground in the midst of a growth of several dead sagebrush plants.

Tony was in his zone—the kill zone—and it fed his rage when the man, his hands still over his head, trembled so much he could barely manage to get out the words, “Please …, t … take my car. D … Don’t shoot …, I h … have little children.”

“They won’t be the first maggots to grow up without a dad,” Tony said, and placed the gun between the man’s eyes.

The pressure churned, boiled and clawed behind Tony’s eyes. All other thoughts surrendered to the energy force. It demanded an immediate explosive discharge. He watched the whites of his victim’s eyes expand as they filled with terror and, like an addiction, he was powerless to stop the slaughter that expelled. As he pulled the trigger and watched the man’s pleading eyes turn to a lifeless stare, he felt the temporary release. It wasn’t over yet, but it would satisfy for now.

_____

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67 Born to Make the Kill

They had only traveled another ten minutes when Tony saw a yellow sign with a cross indicating an intersection just ahead. The further north they travelled the darker the sky became. The drizzle turned to rain and Tony increased the speed on the windshield wipers. When they reached the crossing, Tony turned the HEMI powered truck off the main highway, and headed east on the road. Where it led he didn’t care right now. I need to disappear long enough to find another ride.

The countryside, cluttered with outcroppings of dark volcanic rock and sagebrush, stretched out flat on both sides. In the rearview mirror, Tony could still see vehicles on the main highway. He felt like the burgundy truck had become a beacon which would draw the cops to him like an airport signal reaches through the night sky to approaching aircraft. He had to find cover, so he pressed harder on the accelerator until the truck approached eighty miles per hour. After a minute, the road dropped over a small rise and he began to feel some relief as the truck hid from SR 21.

He steered the truck onto the shoulder, stomped the brakes until it skidded to a stop, and threw open his door.



As morning had turned into afternoon, Special Agent Angela Hawk felt rummy. She had been on duty since eight a.m. yesterday and except for a brief nap just before sunrise, she had been awake for an entire day. Instinct and caffeine had directed her thus far, but her optimism faded as the hours and erroneous reports came and went.

At about ten this morning, she had heard the tan Nissan had been located. Even though she turned the search over to Baker Police Chief, Clarence Bigad, it had been no surprise his name wasn’t mentioned in the report. The Stanza had actually been found by a woman out for a jog. She spotted the car behind some granite boulders that jutted out of the ground, wedged between a stand of trees and had called 9-1-1. The Pacific County Sheriff responded.

As Angela suspected, Hank Rogers had been in the trunk, dead. The preliminary medical report said he had died twelve to fourteen hours before. There had been evidence the other three people had been in the vehicle. Plenty of trash from junk food wrappers, and empty water bottles and soda cans cluttered the floor. Along with an overflowing ash tray, in the backseat a few blond hairs had also been recovered. Lots of forensics, she thought.

Armed with the information that the suspects were possibly en route to Canada, an APB had been circulated around Washington State for the stolen pickup. Throughout the day there had been a number of reports, but most made no sense. Some of them were too far away from the scene of the crime for the suspects to have covered that much ground. Some of them were headed south instead of north. Another had been a solitary driver and one had an elderly couple in the front seat. In every case, when the license numbers were checked, they proved not to be the stolen vehicle’s plates.

This morning, the FBI in Detroit had paid a visit to Rudy Valencia’s father. The report she took over the radio stated that he had been unwilling to give any information at first, but when confronted with the knowledge his son was connected to a string of murders and robberies, he gave up the location of his brother’s hunting cabin in Canada. The most direct route to the cabin would put them on SR 21.

Agent Hawk had monitored all the reports since she left the site where the truck had been stolen, and, when the Washington State Patrol reported a new sighting, she had been alerted within a few minutes. The details sounded promising. The truck, spotted on SR 21, according to the patrolman’s report, had two men in the front seat.

Angela felt her intuition had kicked into overdrive. She had driven in hopes of being on the right trail and, like the homing device in a homebound salmon points her without wavering to the site of her original spawning, Angela’s instincts had lead her over the last day to within twenty miles of their location. She flipped on her emergency lights, shoved the accelerator pedal to the floor and let the adrenaline lift her spirits. She was so close she could kiss them goodbye.



Natalie was still on her knees behind the driver’s seat when the back door flew open. She saw Tony’s fist aimed at her face and even though she tried to throw herself to the side, he still connected with brutal force on the bridge of her nose. The blow knocked Natalie on her back behind the front passenger seat, with her hands and feet tied behind her. Pinned by her own weight, she felt trapped. Waves of agony radiated over her face, and pulsated from the point of impact.

“One more goddamn trick like that and I will kill you,” he yelled, “Make no mistake about it.”

He slammed the back door.

Natalie couldn’t hold the tears of physical pain and frustration back and they rolled into her ears. On the floor stunned, though, she felt something else trickle across her cheek.

_____

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66 Born to Make the Kill

As they turned north from US Highway 2 on SR 21 at Wilbur, Washington and crossed Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake, fed by the Columbia River, the sun, having reached its apex a couple of hours before, and still several hours above the western horizon, slipped behind a bank of dark clouds migrating on a quick pace to the east.

Tony felt success within his grasp. He lived for the chase, and the inevitable escape gave a more intense high than the purest cocaine. But this had gone long enough. The tension of the two thousand mile run, his broken sleep pattern and the uncertainty of how Natalie would perform her final act, played on his mind. Canada and a place to let the heat die down were less than a hundred miles away. If they could make it across the border, Rudy would direct him to his uncle’s cabin and then after disposing of lover boy, he would have her all to himself. There, he could provoke her to do just what he needed.

She had asked, “Why don’t you just shoot me?” but that would have foiled the plan. She had begun to measure up by her willingness in the warehouse but through the last three days she had come along ways in proving her worth. Ma had been weak and let people use her until nothing of her own will remained. Natalie, however, had gained strength despite all he put her through. She hadn’t given up. If she continued, she would be worth keeping around until the end, but if not, he would tire of her, and since his attention span was relatively short, that wouldn’t take much longer.

There’s got to be plenty of places in the Canadian woods for twin graves, he thought. If she failed, he would bury Rudy and Natalie side by side where they would spend eternity together pushing up moss and sword ferns, never to be seen again. Since he had never been arrested for a murder, although he had put more than a few lights out in New Jersey and the Bronx, he was confident he would never do time for any of the crimes he had committed over the last few days either.

“As much as I like this ride,” Tony said and patted the steering wheel, “we need to ditch it and find a new set of wheels. That damn farmer’s sure to have missed his truck by now and he’ll have called the police. The sooner the better, besides we’re running low on fuel and I don’t want to draw any more attention. Holding up another gas station’s not an option this time, unless we kill the clerk and take his car.”

He found the switch for the windshield wipers and turned it on. The blades smeared the window at first since only a light drizzle had begun to fall, so he flipped on the windshield washer to clear the grime.

Rudy had his head leaned back against the headrest. At the sound of Tony’s voice, he opened his eyes and turned toward him. He lifted his head. “Nobody else needs to die. I’m glad you didn’t kill the clerk last night.”

Tony had hoped to get some long needed sleep last night. A murder would mean they couldn’t stay in the area around Baker, as that would alert the big dogs. “Leaving witnesses isn’t a good idea,” he said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about it.”

“Look, Tony, I’ll find us a new ride but keep your gun in your belt. Okay?”

“Damn straight kid, whatever you say.”



Natalie had been lying in the backseat of the truck for hours. Her hopes of being found were dashed when they switched from the Stanza to the pickup. She had left a note at the last holdup. If someone had found it, they would be on the lookout for a tan Nissan not a truck.

She was so uncomfortable. Not as uncomfortable as the day in the trunk or the day on the corrugated floor of the van, but then she could move around. Now, Tony had hog tied her. She had watched her daddy do it many times on the farm and she wondered if this might be a bad omen. On daddy’s farm, this was the final thing that happened in the pig’s life before its throat was slit.

She still had the diaper gag in her mouth, too. Throughout the day he had tried to push it free, but with it taped in place, it had been futile. It had absorbed all the moister in her mouth, which wasn’t much since she hadn’t been given drink most of the trip. To add to the misery, the wide masking tape wrapped around her head several times pulled at her hair whenever she moved her head.

Besides dehydration and hunger, she felt angry with herself. Every effort she made toward freedom seemed to backfire and she ended up in a worse situation. That didn’t mean she was about to quit. Any opportunity came she would take it, but she couldn’t help the discouragement, now well into her third day of captivity.

“Is that a cop up there?” Rudy shouted and interrupted Natalie’s thoughts. If that was true, she had to act now.

“Shit,” Tony shouted. “We’ve got to ditch this damn truck, now.”

Natalie tried to swing her feet to the floor, but tied behind her back, she could only roll forward, and place her knees on the carpet behind the driver’s seat. She pushed herself up and extended her body high enough to peer out the window. Maybe the police will see me bound and gagged.

She was too late. By the time she raised enough to look out the window, the only thing left for her to see of the white Washington State Patrol car was its rear end. Although it had passed and she had lost another chance for rescue, she knew one thing for certain—her efforts would cost her.

“What the hell are you doing back there?” shouted Tony.

She couldn’t answer even if she wanted too with the gag in her mouth. All she could do was release a muffled “Aaaagh!”

_____

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65 Born to Make the Kill

“That’s it,” Rudy said, as he dropped the rest of the supplies on the floor of the passenger side of the pickup.

“Follow me,” Tony said. “Let’s get out a here.”

With a few hours’ sleep Tony felt invincible again. He turned the ignition. The sound the 5.7 liter HEMI engine made as it sprang to life fueled the adrenaline already pulsing through his body. He checked to see that the tractor was still headed away, then turned the Dodge Ram about and drove toward the main road.

Rudy followed close behind with Hank’s lifeless body in the Nissan’s trunk.



Agent Hawk had left the site of the gas station holdup, the last known sighting of the sedan, several hours before.

Sonya, the attendant, had been tied up and gagged in the back room, but she had been able to scoot to a phone, maneuver her hands enough to dial 9-1-1, and scream a muffled “Help!” into the receiver.

“Did they use the restroom at all?” Angela had asked during the interview at the store.

“Yeah, she did. He scared the shit out of me and I forgot about that.”

“What did the man do while she was in there?

“Well, I wasn’t paying much attention but now that you mention it, I think he stood outside the door,” she said and combed her fingers through her hair. “Yeah, he kept looking in my direction, kinda creepy like, until she come out.”

Angela had made an examination of the restroom and turned up a handwritten note, penned on a piece of paper with the name Pair-A-Dice Motel at the top.

“Been kidnapped and raped Tony, Rudy and Hank. Hank is dead. Driving a tan Nissan, headed to Rudy’s uncle’s cabin in Canada.

“Natalie Beaumont (Amy Westerhill) 714-555-8526”

After she showed Sonya photos of the suspects taken from the security video in California and Natalie Beaumont’s headshot, she confirmed the identity of the couple in the store but didn’t recognize the other two men.

Something the clerk hadn’t reported stolen caused Angela to stay in the area. They had taken all the cash in the register drawer, cartons of cigarettes, food, beer, bottled water, nylon rope, a Washington State map and a box knife. All practical things but, Sonya didn’t mention gasoline. When Angela asked about it, Sonya said, “There’s a security monitor in the back room. I watched them drive away right after they tied me up.”

That left one conclusion.

With the distance they had traveled since they had stolen the vehicle in Oregon, even if it had had a full tank, they should have been running low on fuel by now. They had stolen money in Lincoln City, so somewhere along the way they may have stopped to refuel, but that seemed unlikely. The conclusion she had drawn was that they didn’t fill up the tank because they planned to steal another vehicle in the area. Like a good hunting dog, she felt she had caught their scent, and now it lingered in the air.

After she had finished her report, except for a couple of hours when she couldn’t drive another mile without closing her eyes, she spent the night searching for the subject’s stolen car. She had been alone in the pursuit and, with too many places where they could have holed up, knew it practically impossible to find them at night. She had filed a BOLO for the Stanza in Pacific and the surrounding counties, but by daybreak nothing had surfaced.

Since she had been on duty over twenty-two hours, she decided to stop for something to eat. The sun had come up about an hour before and while she sipped her coffee and ate her over-easy eggs, she looked out from the window seat of the diner to the street as the city of Baker came to life.

A phone rang behind the counter, and drew her eyes to two old men and a middle aged woman with red hair sitting on barstools. They laughed and chatted like this was their daily ritual. A young female server took the call, and then looked across the café to the entire police department in Baker, Chief Clarence Bigad.

Bigad had responded to the robbery last night just after Angela concluded her interview with Sonya. The Jack Daniels on his breath partially explained his impertinence, but after two minutes with him, she recognized that it was either her agency or her gender—and probably both—that gave him that brazen edge. She could almost see the wheels spin in his head when she introduced herself as FBI. She wouldn’t have been at all surprised to overhear him refer to her with his cronies as that “G-Man, or to be absolutely politically correct, G-Person with the G-String.” Last night his eyes said, “Get the hell out of Baker,” but he had been cooperative, and when he entered the café fifteen minutes ago, he produced an almost polite smile and a wave.

He now sat across the diner with the morning newspaper and stuffed breakfast though his fat reddish cheeks. From her position, Angela could see his rotund belly filled the gap between the back of the seat and the table edge. Since he couldn’t lean over the table when he ate, the white paper napkin tucked into his shirt collar protected his khaki colored uniform shirt from drippings of egg yolk, coffee and strawberry pancake syrup. Just the edge of a polished gold badge winked out from under the stain barrier as it caught the overhead light.

“It’s for you,” the sever said as she stopped at the Chief’s table.

As he struggled to shift his bulk out of the bench seat, a loud squawk as the vinyl upholstery complained against his polyester trouser bottoms filled the diner. He finally came free. With the table and the seatback for leverage, he hoisted himself to a standing position. He threw the napkin on the table and waddled to the phone behind the counter.

Before the server returned to her station, she dropped Angela’s bill on the table. While the Special Agent studied it and pulled her billfold from her pocket, she listened to Bigad’s half of the conversation.

“Chief Bigad,” he shouted into the receiver and winked at the server.

“Stolen?” He met Agent Hawk’s eye and looked away. Bigad cupped his hand over the phone’s mouthpiece and turned his back to the restaurant patrons. Even with a lowered voice, Angela could still hear him in the now silent café. “When, where?”

“I’ll be right there,” Clarence concluded and hung up the receiver.

He motioned to the waitress for his bill, and while he paid it, he glanced toward Angela.

“You might want to join me,” he said and without hesitation, headed for the door.

_____

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64 Born to Make the Kill

Minutes after Tony had driven away from the convenience store, the adrenaline rush of the holdup plunged and he felt exhaustion begin to creep like an aggressive malignancy into every fiber of his body. Conscious of a lump in his throat, he had swiped at the tears in his eyes. Not one thing, not even when Ma had been run down by the drunken bastard, had wrung a single tear from him. Yet Hank’s death, the tension of his relentless flight from the law, or the anticipation of the release of his Ma’s torment, had reduced him to silent sobs. He glanced toward Rudy to make sure he didn’t see his weakness. Relieved to find his face turned toward the window and the gray hoodie pulled over his head, and with no need to check Natalie as she lay on the rear seat where he had left her, he had opened a fresh pack of cigarettes, lit one and then tried to change the subject in his mind.

Hank was perhaps the only friend he had known in recent years and his death had no part in the plan. Yet in some cruel turn of fate, the bullet Natalie put in his chest marked the true start of her worthy test and each time she countered his plan, Ma’s atonement drew nearer. Before he finished with her, one last trial remained for her to face, and it would require all their strength.

Mourning was an emotion he had never felt. In fact he believed he couldn’t feel anything but hate. But this grief came on against his will with such power he had decided his current state must be total mental and physical exhaustion. His body needed to be recharged. That meant sleep and he had a searched for a secure place.

Like a few hours earlier when he had stolen the sedan, he had found a narrow dirt lane off the main road and backed the Nissan into a stand of trees. There, he would be invisible until morning light.



Natalie had been tossed on the backseat like a bag of dirty laundry. Tony had then bound together her hands and feet behind her back with a white nylon rope he had stolen from the store. To complete her imprisonment and humiliation, he had shoved a piece of a disposable diaper into her mouth and had wrapped masking tape around her head to hold it in place.

Once Tony had fallen asleep, she calmed herself with deep breaths through her nose. Since the cab wasn’t as heavy with tobacco smoke, the air had been fresh enough that she felt her body begin to give in to exhaustion. The tension siphon off. She knew she would need her strength when she had an opportunity, so she had given in to sleep.

Now, several hours later, something caused her to stir. From the shadows manifested in the passenger compartment, she realized it was the time of day when first light begins to break just before the sun volleys its first rays over the horizon. She had experienced this many times before on the farm. Now with her face toward the back of the seat, pleasant thoughts of her dad rising with the sun to begin a long day’s work filled her head as she heard the sound of a distant tractor.



The faint hum of a diesel engine crept into Tony’s sleep and he woke with a start. He feared his hiding place had been compromised. He looked out through the rain stained windshield and saw across the dirt road from the stand of evergreens under which he had parked, a large recently harvested field lay blanketed with downed corn stalks yet to be disposed. The wet shucks glistened as the sun found the moister from last night’s shower.

He started the Nissan and crept up to the edge of the forest. In the distance, a half mile away, he could see to his left a tractor plowing the field. It headed away from him. Between his position and the tractor stood the prize about a quarter mile up the lane, a burgundy pickup truck. He rolled the sedan out of the trees, turned left and headed for it.

As he approached, he could see it was a four door. He stopped beside and just behind it, and hoped to hide the Nissan from the farmer’s view. If the driver of the tractor reached the end of the row he was now plowing and turned around, Tony wanted nothing suspicious to attract his attention. He needed enough time to make the switch and avoid the farmer’s eye.

He turned toward Rudy who had woken up when the Stanza’s engine came to life. Before he gave in to sleep last night, Tony had tied Rudy’s hands and feet together with the same nylon rope he used on Natalie. Now, he reached into his coat pocket, produced a box knife also stolen last night and cut the ropes from Rudy’s feet and hands.

“Get her into the backseat,” he said, “and hurry. We don’t have much time.”

Tony jumped out of the driver’s seat of the sedan and stepped toward the truck He wanted to gain access without breaking a window—a purely amateur means of entry. Back in Jersey such a feat wouldn’t have posed a moment’s concern as he would have had the proper tool for the job—a Slim Jim. None at hand, though, posed no problem as the farmer had left the doors unlocked. Once inside he began his search for keys. After a few failed attempts: behind the sun visor, under the floor mat, in the console compartment, he thought to look in the most obvious place, the ignition. They were there.

“Stupid farmer. He deserves this.”



Rudy opened the back door of the truck and then went back to the Nissan for Natalie.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he picked her up off the backseat.

She couldn’t answer with the gag in her mouth, but she seemed to grace him with an “I understand” smile in her eyes. After what she had said to Tony last night, “it’s my job to escape. When I said that, I meant from all of you, Rudy included,” this kindness was reassuring.

He realized that the way Tony had tied her had to be uncomfortable, even more than the way she had been tied up in the van, so he placed her carefully on the backseat of the truck.

_____

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63 Born to Make the Kill

As they pulled back onto the road, Tony reached into his shirt pocket and came up empty.

“Nice going, lover boy,” Tony said, the scorn hot enough to scorch a new hole in the ozone layer. “I’m out of smokes, shithead.”

“How’s that my fault?” Rudy asked. “I don’t smoke.”

Twenty silent minutes passed and they pulled up to a twenty-four hour convenience store.

As Tony stopped the engine, he said to Rudy, “You wait, I’ll rob.” He opened his door and continued, “Do you think you can do that right? If you screw this up, you both die along with that clerk in there.”

He stepped out, walked around the Stanza and opened the door next to Natalie. After he untied her, he grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. “You’re with me. I don’t trust you two together. If you want to see the light of day tomorrow, you better damn well be on your best behavior.”



Sonya knew her boyfriend would like the new tat she had inked to her hip today and could hardly wait until her shift ended at midnight to show him. The nineteen year old clerk sat on a stool behind the convenience store counter and to pass the time on a slow night, she watched an old vampire movie on a twelve inch black and white television. Except for a polite nod, when a couple came in, she ignored them and let them go about their business in the store.

“A couple cartons of smokes,” the man said when he had finished and dumped the last load on the counter top. “Bag it and hurry.”

Sonya tore her eyes away from the set and slipped off the stool. “What kind,” she asked and turned toward the cigarette rack behind the counter.

“How ‘bout those Marlborough and make it three cartons.”

She retrieved the boxes and then turned back to the counter. When they had entered a few minutes before, one glance at the disheveled girl was all it took to dismiss her. But now as she faced the bruised cheeks and the dark circles under her smoky eyes, she knew she needed help. Sonya looked from the teenager to the ponytailed man and then back at the girl who couldn’t have been much younger than her.

“Damn it, I said ‘bag it and hurry.’ What about that didn’t you understand.”

Sonya looked into the angry eyes of the man, shot him a disdainful scowl—he should keep his hands to himself—and then reached for the first item. She scanned the barcode, and slid a loaf of bread into the bag.

“No need to ring it up, bitch, and don’t forget the till.”

Sonya glanced up just in time to see the man pull a silver barreled pistol from his belt. He put his arm around the girl’s shoulders and drew her close to his chest. He pressed the gun to the teenager’s temple. “Bag it now or I blow her brains out right here, right now.”

Sonya’s jaw dropped as she looked between the gun and the girl. Paralyzed, she couldn’t act.

“Do it now,” the girl said in a calm voice. “He’s not kidding,”

Sonya tore her eyes away from the revolver and began to shove the items from the counter into plastic bags.

“The money,” the ponytailed man shouted and waved the gun toward the register. “Get the damn money.”

Sonya opened the drawer and pulled all the bills out.”

“There’s not much here,” Sonya said and feared that her inability to produce a wad of cash would be the last thing she did. “We don’t keep much in the register at night. Only fifty bucks or so.”

“That all?” the man shouted.

“There’s a safe in the back, but I don’t know the combo. Please, sir, just take it and go.”

“God damn it. Carry the shit to the car.”

With the battered girl’s help, Sonya grabbed the bags and the three headed for the sedan. He had released his grip in the girl but Sonya could see he was pushing her along with the muzzle of the pistol in her back.

“Back seat,” the man yelled as they approached the Stanza. “And no shit.”

After Sonya placed the sacks on the seat, she withdrew from the rear compartment, stood and faced the man. He held the gun on her now.

“Back to the store,” he said, and pressed the gun into the Sonya’s chest. He cinched his left hand around the other girl’s bicep and pulled her along as they walked to the store. Once inside, he forced Sonya into the back room.

“Don’t do it Tony,” the girl pleaded. “Don’t hurt her, please.”

“Shut your damn whining asshole, Whore. Why do you give a shit?”

“She’s just a kid like me Tony. Don’t please.”

Sonya looked at Tony and saw the stone features of his face. “Please don’t kill me, sir.”

“On your knees, bitch.”

Sonya dropped to her knees, compliant, but kept her face turned toward the man with the gun.

Tony pressed the Python between her eyes.



Angela Hawk had driven for the last hour and half on instinct. Her week hadn’t gone well. She had let a witness go missing on Wednesday. It had taken the local police to find her body three days later, and in all that time, she had found nothing to lead her to a suspect. She wasn’t sure her instinct even worked anymore. One thing she did know, she had lost the trail of the tan Stanza before she even had it. It had been several hours since the suspects had fled the scene in Oregon, and even though she had convinced herself they would have continued on north, she had nothing to support it but her gut. They could be anywhere which meant she was on a hopeless chase. So far there had been no sightings of the sedan from the APB she had put out. If they had crossed the state line and were in fact in Washington, there were just too many side roads they could have taken. She felt like she had been conscripted to chase a ghost and there was no telling what thin air it had vanished into.

She figured they would need to refuel eventually, but the suspects had reportedly stolen cash in Oregon, so to take the heat off they may pay cash. That left no way to pick up their trail.

Angela had just parked outside an all-night café to consume some caffeine to jolt her mind awake. As she wound her long black hair into a bun, her cellular phone rang. She reached for the phone and let her hair fall onto her shoulders.

“Agent Hawk,” she said, and then listened as the voice in her ear gave her a report about a hold up at a gas station. She couldn’t believe her luck or was it her instinct actually reigniting. She had just about given up hope, but the suspects drove a tan sedan and now they weren’t thirty minutes away. She gunned the engine of her black SUV, flipped her strobe lights on, and headed back onto the road.

_____

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All Rights Reserved

62 Born to Make the Kill

Tony ran around to the other side of the Nissan and tore the rear door open. His eyes met Natalie’s.

“He’s gone,” she said, reverently. “He’s already gone.”

“Gone? You mean dead, don’t you? You killed Hank. You murdered my friend. I warned you what would happen if he died.”

Tony leaned in and looked into Hank’s still eyes. “Do something!” he yelled at Natalie.

“I’m sorry but there’s nothing else I can do. He’s gone. Can’t you see he isn’t breathing? Can’t you see the color has left his face?”

“Don’t you know CPR?”

“Even if I did, it’s too late.” She kept her voice calm and even. “He needed a doctor, Rudy tried to tell you.”

“Damn it, I don’t need a lecture.”

“I’m sorry. I know he was your friend. I tried my best to keep him alive but there was just too much damage.”

“Damage you caused, bitch.”

“You’re right of course,” she said, and tried but failed to contain the sarcasm about to spill out. “I should have just let him rape and beat me some more. Who knows maybe between the two of you, you would have killed me already and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Just shut up, shut the hell up. I’ve got to think. Get out of the car.”

She held up her hands to remind him he had her tied. He grabbed her hands pulled her from the seat and let her fall to the ground outside the door. Since it had rained recently, the ground forgave more than she expected but her body began an uncontrollable tremble from the cold dampness of the ground, the night air that bit into her body and the memory of Tony’s promise. As she rolled to get away from Tony’s feet, his words rang in her ears, “If Hank dies your next.” Her heart began to hammer against her ribs and panic engulfed her like an avalanche. She needed to quell her emotions. She grabbed the handle of the rear door and used it for support as she stood to her feet.

Tony, bent at the waist, leaned into the rear seat compartment over Hank. He suddenly withdrew, stood upright, and turned toward Natalie.

Natalie knew this would be the decisive moment. Her life hung in the decision Tony formed behind that angry, acne-scarred face. A decision he might have already made moments before Hank died while he searched the mirror for her. If she could survive the next few minutes, she had hope again of salvation, of escape.

Tony lunged at her and grasp for her throat. She threw herself backwards. Just out of his reach, he slammed into the opened door. She lost balance and fell backward into the mire.

From his hunched position in the front seat, Rudy screamed, “We need her, Tony.”

“And why the hell is that?” Tony asked and grabbed the door for support.

“’Cause, if this doesn’t go down well,” Rudy said, “and the police do catch up with us, she is our bargaining chip.”

“I see and now that Hank’s dead, have you and your girlfriend cooked up a plot to get rid of me, too?”

Natalie needed to take over the conversation as Rudy was no match for Tony’s tongue. She had hoped to drive a wedge between them but this was not the time to exploit this schism. She rolled onto her knees.

“You think I’d make a pact with him?” she yelled, and saw Tony turn his head toward her. “Rudy raped me! I told you last night at the motel you may think it’s your job to inflict as much pain and disgrace on me as you can, but it’s my job to escape. When I said that, I meant from all of you, Rudy included.”

She knew that would sting Rudy and from the edge of her vision she saw him drop his head.

“Despite Hank’s violence towards me,” she continued, “I’ve done everything I can to keep him alive for the last day. There have been so many times I could have slipped my hands around his neck and choked the life out of him, and I would have been justified doing it, but I didn’t. I tried to keep him alive.”

“How do I know you didn’t do that now?” Tony demanded and leaned away from the door.

“You don’t, but I wouldn’t. How stupid do you think I am? You’ve said repeatedly, if he dies, I’m next. Look at me, I’m defenseless here. You keep me tied up worse than a dog. I have no power here at all. Killing him would be sealing my own fate.”

She realized that she needed to divert the attention away from herself and Rudy. She found a place of calm and confidence, and continued, “We need to do something with Hank’s body.”

Tony glared at her for a moment and then she saw the look in his eye begin to soften.

“This isn’t over,” he said. “I’m still going to put a bullet in your head and then feed you to the vultures.”

He reached to Rudy’s door and opened it. “No shit or she’s dead.” With a swift tug he ripped the cloth that tied Rudy’s hands to the seat and then continued, “Get the keys and let’s put Hank’s carcass in the trunk for now. We can’t just leave him by the side of the damn road.”

The irony that Hank was to be confined to the steel sarcophagus like she had been for so many hours was not lost on Natalie. He had let her out of the trunk before she died, but now dead, he would fill the space. She wondered how long it would be before someone freed him from that crude internment.

After Hank was in the trunk, Tony said to Rudy, “Get her in the car.”

Natalie was still kneeling, tied hand and foot, by the side of the road. As Rudy approached, she let out a deep breath and allowed a tentative relief to flood over her. She was glad to be alive but as she waited for Rudy to help her get into the back seat, she renewed her vow to find a way to escape with or without Rudy’s help.

She knew her statement about escaping “Rudy included” wounded him, so to lift his spirits, as he placed her on the back seat, she whispered, “I had to say that, you know. We don’t want him thinking we’re plotting against him.”

“I know,” he said.

Even though he verbally agreed, Natalie sensed that he battled with belief.

_____

Can’t wait for more; go to Amazon.com to add this to your bookshelf.

For more about me, visit http://www.jearlrugh.com/ or Facebook

© Jearl Rugh 2012

All Rights Reserved