Scott Free Page 9

  “I love you, Paul,” she said.

  “I love you, too, Daisy,” he replied. “Now let’s get in there and fix this.”

  Chapter 30

  Thomas Scott

  IT WAS SO bright outside and so dark inside that, as soon as Thomas crossed the threshold into the warehouse, it was like he’d gone blind. He blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim light that was spilling in narrow beams through dirty windows near the ceiling.

  As his vision grew sharper, he realized just how filthy the inside of the warehouse was. It made his shoulders tense. Dirt and dust and oil and mildew, everywhere. Probably other, worse things. Excrement. Dead animals.

  He imagined what it would take to get this place clean: Weeks of labor, truckloads of supplies. He would start with the walls. A good brushing and a scrubbing, to get all the grit and gunk off. Doing the walls first meant not having to do the floors twice.

  It was a ridiculous thing to think about, but it was distracting him from the current situation.

  Hanlon was holding his arm tight, marching him right behind Amato and John Junior’s dad. Their feet scraped in the dirt on the concrete floor.

  At the end of this walk he was going to die.

  And he was a little surprised—a thing like that ought to upset him. Scare him more than anything had ever scared him before. Yet this entire ordeal had been so terrible, he was ready for it to end. If anything, he was annoyed at himself. He should have been smarter than to go to Amato’s office. Of course that’s where they would look for him, because of course it was the most sensible place for him to go.

  Maybe he deserved this.

  He felt bad about getting Amato involved. He hoped, at least, they would let him speak long enough he could convince them to let Amato go. Maybe Amato would be smart enough to swear to not go to the police. Thomas would gladly allow him that—tell Amato he didn’t want revenge, he didn’t want anyone else to suffer. He wanted to go to his death knowing he hadn’t inadvertently condemned someone else.

  But he felt like it wasn’t going to work out that way.

  They approached a door and Thomas felt dread bubbling in his stomach, hot and thick. That terrible feeling of anticipation over what was next. Were they going to shoot him? Stab him?

  Would it hurt?

  He hoped it wouldn’t hurt too much. He hoped it would be quick.

  John Junior’s dad pushed the door open and led them through.

  The first thing Thomas noticed was the two women standing off to the side—Billy’s and John Junior’s moms. It was a big room, with a staircase and a platform and what looked like a big pane of glass. There was something strange about the glass. Some kind of visual distortion. A stray sunbeam hit it and seemed to break apart and scatter across the room. It took a second for Thomas to figure out what he was looking at.

  When the realization hit, he screamed hard into the gag.

  It was a tank full of water.

  And he knew what form of death they had chosen for him.

  He threw himself backward, trying with every ounce of strength to get away. This only caused Hanlon to push him into John Junior’s dad, who grabbed him by both arms and nearly lifted him off his feet before slamming him into the ground.

  John Junior’s dad climbed on top of him and drove the flat of his fist into Thomas’s nose. Thomas felt something shift in his face. His head shot back and cracked against the concrete. Once, twice, three times, until the pain was so great it overwhelmed every other sense and his body gave up, falling flat against the floor. He tasted copper in his mouth.

  “That’s right,” said John Junior’s dad. “You’re going to suffer like my son suffered.”

  Chapter 31

  Daisy Zhou

  DAISY PUSHED THROUGH the door to find John straddling Scott, pounding his fists into the man’s face, then leaning down and whispering something into the bloody mess that remained.

  There was a wild energy in the room, like at any moment someone might scream, but everyone was holding back. Susan was off to the side, her eyes darting around, her hand at her mouth. Amato was on his knees with Hanlon standing behind him, clutching his gun in his hand.

  Daisy felt Paul come up alongside her. She was struck by how comforted she felt by his presence, and that made her angry—but only at herself, for doubting him and their relationship. Paul was a good man, and he had been right from the beginning.

  “Wait,” she said.

  Everyone paused and looked up at her.

  “We need…we just…” she said, struggling to find the right words.

  “With all due respect, shut up,” Hanlon said. “Right now, we’re going to finish this. You all signed on. You all knew you were going to get your hands dirty. So let’s get it over with.”

  As Hanlon spoke, John climbed off Scott, crossed the room, and picked up a cinder block and a length of chain. Scott scrambled away, his sobs filling the room and stabbing at Daisy. It was the sobbing of a child, and her maternal instinct made her want to cradle him and comfort him, no matter how much it made her sick to think that.

  She couldn’t help it. There was something so pathetic about him.

  About all of this.

  “Hanlon, we did not agree to kill an innocent person,” Paul said, raising his voice. “But I forced Daisy to be here, so the first thing we should do is let her leave.”

  Hanlon made a confused face, but realization slowly dawned on him. “Oh, I get it. Working your defense. Nobody is leaving right now, so just be quiet and let us work.”

  John had looped the chain around the cinder block and started on Scott’s legs. The man was still struggling, but had backed up into the brick wall. With his hands bound and no place to go, he tried twisting away, but didn’t have any leverage.

  Daisy’s mouth was dry. Paul was already crossing the room to Hanlon, like he wanted to get in between the cop and the lawyer.

  “I can’t let you do this,” Paul said.

  Hanlon raised the gun and aimed it at Paul’s chest.

  Daisy’s heart skipped a beat.

  “You’re not ‘letting’ me do anything,” Hanlon said.

  Paul slowly raised his hands until they were up by his shoulders. Amato yelled into the gag.

  “You can’t be serious,” Paul said.

  “I am very serious,” Hanlon said. “Do you know how many lawyers I have watched get guilty men back onto the street? And how many of those guilty men who have gone on to rape and kill again? And for what? The assholes play the system. It’s all loopholes and technicalities, even when the evidence is screaming in your face.”

  Amato was still yelling, trying to say something.

  “That doesn’t give you the right…” Paul said.

  “Don’t you tell me about rights,” Hanlon said, his voice taking on a sharp, dangerous edge. “Do you know what it was like, watching a jury acquit the man who killed my wife and son? He blew so high on the breathalyzer he should have been dead. He should have spent the rest of his life in jail. But he had money. And his high-priced lawyer managed to convince a jury that the breathalyzer was faulty. The man who killed my family walked, because of men like him.”

  To punctuate the point, Hanlon put his foot on Amato’s back and kicked him over. The lawyer’s face smacked against the floor. He rolled over and groaned.

  “My family had rights, until a drunk driver and a lawyer told me they didn’t,” Hanlon said. “Now stand over in the corner with your wife. This will all be over soon.”

  Paul stepped back slowly.

  Daisy considered reaching out to him, but the tension in the room was so heavy, she was afraid any sudden movement might cause Hanlon to panic and fire. She finally recognized him for what he was: twisted and deranged by the tragedy of his past.

  John, meanwhile, was holding Thomas under the armpits, dragging him toward the tank.

  Chapter 32

  John Kennelly

  SCOTT WAS HEAVY, and it would be a tough jo
b getting him up the metal staircase, and onto the platform at the lip of the tank. John couldn’t ask Paul or Daisy for help. Hanlon was busy keeping things under control. Susan and Kat were too slight for this kind of work.

  It was up to John.

  Ultimately, it would be worth the effort.

  Every waking moment since John Junior died had been consumed by an emotion too simple to peg as “anger.” It was a blackness that opened up in the center of him, a vacuum that consumed and destroyed everything, until there was only empty space left behind.

  And now, nearly at the end of this, a calm washed over him.

  The tank couldn’t have been more perfect. He wondered, vaguely, what it was for, but decided he didn’t care. All that mattered is that it would serve the purpose he wanted it to. They’d gotten lucky—and not for the first time. As soon as he saw it, he knew that’s how he wanted Scott to die. As chance would have it, there was a working firehose nearby, wrapped up behind glass near the tank, which made short work of filling it.

  John pegged the water level at about eight feet. The cinder block and chain would keep Thomas below the surface. And since it was constructed mostly of glass, they’d have a clear view of him as he struggled and died.

  John would be able to stand there and press his face against the glass and stare Scott in the eyes the entire time. He felt good. He wanted to cry. It wasn’t sad or happy crying. Just all the emotion that had built up, ready to spill out. He looked down at this mess of a man, struggling but unable to get away. Soon he would be gone. It wouldn’t bring back John Junior, but it would sure as hell make John feel a lot better.

  He was so at peace that, as he reached the steps and dragged Scott up the stairs, one by one, he was only vaguely aware of the voices in the room, still arguing. The Zhous, unable to accept reality, those cowards.

  But as he reached the platform, as Scott renewed his struggle and John kicked him in the head to calm him down, he heard another voice cut through the din.

  “John!” Susan called.

  He turned to find his wife diving past Hanlon, pulling the gag out of Amato’s mouth. The lawyer coughed as John dropped Scott and yelled, “What the hell are you doing?”

  Chapter 33

  Susan Kennelly

  SUSAN KNEW JOHN was in pain, and she knew he needed this, and she told herself she could live with what they planned to do to Scott. She wasn’t happy about it, but she’d find a way.

  Still, despite all of Hanlon’s bluster, she didn’t believe Amato should die.

  And the lawyer was so desperately trying to say something. She couldn’t help herself. She yelled for her husband to stop and ran to Amato, hoping Hanlon wouldn’t fire the gun, and yanked the gag away. He coughed hard, like he was trying to clear a heavy cold from his lungs.

  John was yelling at her but she wasn’t listening. She knew there’d be consequences and she didn’t care. She was done standing by and letting things happen.

  “You’re making a mistake,” Amato said, the words coming out heavy and scattered.

  “Shut up,” Hanlon said, whipping the gun against the side of Amato’s head with a sharp crack. The lawyer went down hard. Susan yelped and jumped back. She looked up at her husband, whose face had gone beet red. Scott was cowering at his feet.

  “Susan, I want you to listen to me…” John started.

  “No,” Susan said, a little shocked at the force of the word and the volume of her voice. “You listen to me. I have been afraid of you for a very long time but I will not let that overshadow the fact that we’re about to kill an innocent person.”

  John’s face fell. The anger replaced by sadness. It wasn’t her defiance that hurt him. She could see the thing that cut him deepest was the admission that she was afraid of him. And the worst part was, he seemed to understand what she meant almost instantly.

  “Two innocent men,” Amato said from the floor, a smear of blood across his cheek.

  “What?” Susan asked.

  “We’re both innocent,” Amato said. “Has no one noticed the way he’s freaking out? The way he’s shaking? Scott has a major phobia of water. The guy has a hard time taking a shower. You think he drowned those kids?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Hanlon asked.

  “I’m saying that the evidence was planted,” Amato said. He smiled, showing off pearly white teeth now stained with blood. “Who knows? Maybe by you, Detective Hanlon.”

  Chapter 34

  Rex Hanlon

  HANLON FELT HIS skin burning as every eye in the room settled on him.

  That bastard lawyer and his silver tongue. Hanlon had known the gag would be necessary. He was afraid that given the freedom to speak, Amato would try to turn them on each other. And now it was happening.

  The gun was heavy in his hand. He hadn’t fired it in ten years. A liquor store robbery. He wasn’t even on duty. The revolver was his backup piece. He was picking up something to chase the nightmares away, that recurring dream of his family’s car, the metal twisted and coming apart like tissue paper. As Hanlon approached the counter, a man took out a gun and tried to hold the place up. Hanlon shot him. He never gave it a second thought.

  Amato was doing something bad, too. Protecting a guilty man. Playing head games with them. He should shoot him. Not give it a second thought. All it would take would be to lift his arm and squeeze the trigger. Barely more effort than it would take to brush his teeth in the morning.

  And yet, something was wrong. Something in the cop part of his brain, waving a hand at him, trying to get his attention.

  Did Scott have a fear of water? He seemed to remember the lawyer mentioning something about it, but Hanlon had brushed it off as a Hail Mary attempt. Watching Scott cower like a frightened child put it in a new context.

  And if it were true, why would he use water—drowning—as the murder weapon? There was something about it that didn’t track. Unless it was the perfect murder weapon, given how much he feared it…

  He suddenly felt torn in two directions.

  Barely more effort than it would take to brush his teeth.

  The gun was heavy in his hand.

  Amato perked up again.

  “Or, you know, a guy whose own wife is afraid of him, I would wonder what he was capable of,” he said.

  The gazes turned away from Hanlon and swung up to the platform, where John’s mouth was hanging open.

  “How dare you.…” he said.

  “I’m just saying what everyone is thinking,” Amato said.

  “Forget this,” John said. “He’s first. Then you. I’ll do it myself.”

  Hanlon watched as John put his foot on Scott’s back and shoved, sending the man tumbling into the water with a loud splash.

  Chapter 35

  Thomas Scott

  AS SOON AS Thomas hit the cold water, he was right back in that pool. The one that had almost killed him as a child.

  Instead of the dark, dirty ceiling of the warehouse, he saw the sunlight slicing through the canopy. Felt the blue tarp reaching up and wrapping around him, dragging him under.

  His muscles tensed so tightly he was afraid they would tear. His sinus cavity burned as it filled with water. He tried to fight, kick his feet, move his arms, but with everything bound, all he could do was sway back and forth as he looked up at the surface of the water, only a foot or two above him.

  He screamed, but the only thing that escaped was a stream of bubbles, and then water filled his mouth, choking him.

  Chapter 36

  Paul Zhou

  WATER SLOSHED OVER the lip of the tank and spilled onto the floor. Amato struggled to get to his feet, a difficult task considering his arms were still behind his back. Paul rushed to him and pulled him up.

  Hanlon asked, “What the hell are you doing?”

  “You’re not going to shoot me,” Paul said, hoping his gamble would pay off, that Hanlon’s hesitation before meant he was having second thoughts.

  The detective
didn’t say anything back, just shook his head in confusion.

  Paul rushed for the staircase but felt the floor disappear out from underneath him as John slammed him into the wall. The air was forced from his lungs as the bigger man pressed him up against the brick, the rough surface pressing against his face.

  “Don’t you dare interfere with this,” John said. Paul felt flecks of spit slapping the side of his face. “You will not take this from me.”

  Paul struggled but John was nearly twice his size. He tried to twist, away or down, but couldn’t. He worked his legs up, trying to get some leverage on the wall, when he felt John back off a little.

  He turned to see Susan hitting her husband’s back, drawing his attention away. John turned and she smacked him across the face, hard. Paul took his opening and bound up the stairs. There was a scuffle behind him but he didn’t turn back to look, just got onto the platform and threw himself into the water.

  It was so cold he tensed up immediately. He kicked down hard, trying to get to the bottom, to the cinder block, so he could lift it out of the water, enough that Scott would be able to get his head above the surface.

  He could barely see, the way the water was stinging his eyes, but managed to grip it with both hands and swam up, into Scott, pushing him up, too, trying to get them toward the side of the tank.

  Paul couldn’t lift the cinder block and get Thomas out of the tank at the same time, so when he broke the surface he was relieved to see Daisy on her knees, reaching down into the water. She grabbed Scott’s shirt and held him in place, the man sputtering and coughing and crying, as Paul heaved the cinder block onto the platform.

  He crawled out of the water and onto the cold platform, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling, listening to Scott weep as he tried to pull himself up with Daisy’s help, when there was a deafening crashing sound from somewhere in the warehouse.