I parked illegally on the street, right outside the front door of the hotel, the traffic light enough that I could do so without drawing attention. Not that I gave a damn anyway.
I stalked past the front desk, the woman behind it wishing me a good night. When I looked at her, she melted back, then glanced down quickly, pretending to become interested in something on her counter.
I sprinted up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time to the fifth floor. I glanced down the hallway, seeing it was deserted.
I walked until I reached the elevators, then took a left. Shortly, I was standing outside Lucas’s door, the Glock now in my hand.
I felt the press of time, knowing someone could poke their head out at any moment and see me with the pistol. I gently slid in the key-card, getting a green light. I popped open the door a crack and listened. I heard nothing, the room dark.
I snaked my way inside, leaving the door propped open a crack with the damaged dead bolt to give me enough light from the hallway to see.
I made out Lucas in the bed, lying facedown. I walked up to the foot and placed the red dot from the Glock right at the base of the skull, holding it in a two-handed grip. I’d already decided not to do anything stupid like waking him up and telling him why he was about to die. No, it would be a quick double-tap and I would be gone, leaving the maids to clean up the mess and the devil to explain to him why he was now in hell.
The barrel trembled, wobbling up and down, left and right, refusing to settle. My little corner of darkness wanted more than a simple bullet. Wanted to slice his life away one cut at a time, drawing it out as long as his body could stand. I finally had a face to the stalker of my dreams. And the black corner of my soul wanted to kill him exactly the way he had murdered my family.
Get a grip. Get a grip. Can’t do that and escape. Clock’s ticking. Put a bullet in his head.
I took a deep, slow breath, the crime-scene photos shining in stark Technicolor in my mind. I felt the darkness swallow me and saw my hands steady, my arms becoming twin rails with a thin bloodred dot at the center. I tightened my finger, the slack from the trigger safety gone, the trigger beginning its journey smoothly to the rear. I saw movement under the covers next to Lucas. Someone groaned, a sleep-filled little exclamation.
A whore? He brought a whore up and Knuckles said nothing?
The covers snapped back, and a boy of about six flipped to the floor, walking to the bathroom with sleep-filled eyes, completely oblivious to the storm of death standing less than four feet from him. A boy the same age as my daughter when she had been murdered.
I waited until he closed the bathroom door, then backed slowly out of the room. I made it to the stairwell before the margin between life and death slammed home. A razor’s edge that made me sick to my stomach, causing me to stop and hold on to the railing for support.
Two more pounds of trigger pull and you would have killed an innocent man.