Young Writers Society

Russel Pierce, a corrupt cop, is on the run from his former colleagues. Nyssa Malik, his former fiancée, has stolen all of his dirty money and framed him for her murder. She is now in hiding with Peter Carlsen, an old friend. Russ is looking for them.

To know more, see Chapter 18.1.

The Baraja home was a smallish bungalow a short way from the beach. Russ had parked Mark’s car in the shadows under the trees on the side of the road. Looking up through the windshield, he could see that the house looked a little shabby. A tarp was nailed over part of the roof. The plastic pipes of the gutter were rotten through in places, ungainly barrels had been pushed against the walls underneath to collect the rainwater.

Russ was surprised to see a light inside. It was so early that the time barely qualified as morning yet. He hadn’t slept since the previous night at Mark’s apartment. Going on twenty-four hours without sleep was affecting him, it made it hard to focus. But he had finally picked up a scent and he wasn’t crashing until that cunt Nyssa and Carlsen were dead.

He had moved beyond anger or fear in the previous forty-eight hours. Now, he was acting more on despair – though he told himself it was determination. The bitch had crossed him, so had Carlsen. People didn’t cross him and get away with it. Russ always got even in the end.

But he was also aware that his escape window was narrowing with every passing seconds. If his picture wasn’t out there yet, it was a matter of time. He needed to get his cash back from the fools and, then, he would be on his way.

On his way.

The thought brought a nasty smile to his lips as he slipped out of the car. He’d had a nice time in San Francisco, but it had been tiresome to play a role, day in, day out. There were parts of the world out there where a man of his particular…appetites could sate them openly – if he had money.

That little slut Nyssa thought she knew how to plan an exit? Too bad she wouldn’t be around anymore to see him vanish without a trace.

But, first, the Barajas. He needed to pump information out of them. He didn’t foresee any problem, though, not with Flores’s badge, his charisma and what the Kohrs had told him about their neighbors. This was a household of women, after all, and women were putty in his hands.

He prowled around the bungalow, sticking to the shadows. He could hear noises inside, the whisper of feminine voices, the soft rustle of clothing. He couldn’t see inside, the windows were sealed shut and covered by drapes. He stood near one for a while, listening. It made him feel powerful to hear the Baraja bitches go about their business, blissfully ignorant.

He could easily have picked the flimsy locks on the back-door. It would have been amusing to sneak in and to watch them as they got ready for the day. Too bad he didn’t have time to play…He quickly backtracked, stepped on the porch and rang the bell.

All noises stopped inside, then he heard footsteps, quickly followed by a woman’s voice, “Yes?”

“Detective Peter Russel, Ma’am. I’m looking for a Gina, or Regina, Baraja.”

“Gina?” the woman said, a lilt to her voice that told him Spanish was her mother tongue. “What do you want with Gina?”

He put a smile in his voice. “I just need to talk to her, Ma’am. Lily Kohr sent me.”

Another long silence, then she turned on the porch’s lights, the door started opening, stopped. The chain. The bitch had left the chain on. “Show me your badge,” she demanded in a suspicious tone of voice, the one dark eye he could see narrowed.

For a second, Russ considered kicking her door open. The chain looked flimsy too, it probably wouldn’t hold up. The Baraja bitch thought that she had things under control, that she had ground to demand things out of him. It would be his pleasure to grab her by the throat and to squeeze until her eyes watered in realization.

But why bother? He could teach Mrs. Baraja everything he wanted once he got her to open the door and answer his questions.

“Here, Ma’am,” he said, producing his badge – Flores’s badge – with a reassuring smile.

She studied it for a few seconds, then, just as he was getting tired of the game, she took off the chain and opened the door.

She was younger than he had thought, maybe in her early to mid-thirties, but she wasn’t his type. Not pretty enough, he thought dismissively. Her mouth and jaw were too wide, her nose was a little too long. That, plus he liked them young. Maybe this woman wasn’t old in years, but she had seen wear and tear. The skin was taut over her face, she had pockets under eyes and there was a certain weary look in her eyes.

No surprise, there. She clearly worked long hours – she was already fully clothed, and she smelled faintly of coffee. Her mouth curved very slightly in what was probably supposed to pass for a smile.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Just being careful.”

“It’s alright,” Russ replied with a peaceable smile.

Women – he was back in his element. Jack Kohr, young Lily’s father, had stood at his back all the time he had interviewed his daughter over her call to the tip-line. Kohr was a huge SOB, big enough and hard enough to force Russ to be on his best behavior – and the man hadn’t been pleased to be woken up in the middle of the night.

“I’m sorry, Gina’s got to get ready for school. Can this wait?”

Annoyance filled him anew, bright and hot. The bitch couldn’t even speak unaccented English and she thought she could tell him off!

“No,” he said, sinking some steel into the word, although he still kept his voice pleasantly smooth. “I’m afraid it can’t wait. It’s important.”

Her mouth went tight. “Fine,” she acquiesced, her own aggravation deepening her accent. “Let’s sit in the kitchen, yes?”

She sat him down and poured him a cup of coffee – black, though, and she didn’t put forth any milk or sugar. He didn’t really want either, but the small incivility added to his growing resentment. Then, she brought young Gina in, and he smiled sincerely for the first time since he had stepped foot in the house.

Oh, but she was perfect…

Gina was no more beautiful than her sister but with her light brown eyes and long jet-black hair, she reminded him of his own childhood. At fifteen, the girl had a girlishly round face, a bit of a rack as well as long legs and an ass he didn’t really try not to notice. He liked the way she held herself. Her face was lowered, she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

Scared, chica? he wanted to ask.

Maybe he would whisper it in her ear before he taught her real fear.

Younger than his usual, but then, his first had been 11. Little Elena, as Russ still called her in his head. She had been the daughter of his grandfather’s housekeeper, three years younger than him. At fourteen, those three years had seemed an age, especially since Elena’d had a big crush on him and followed him around like a puppy begging to be kicked.

One morning of his fourteenth summer, Elena had barged in on him in his bedroom as he was jerking off. It had been his favorite activity back then. She had run away, flustered, the second she had understood what it was that she had stumbled upon. He had zipped it up with a curse and taken off after her: Elena would babble, he knew it, she always babbled, and this was typically the type of shit that got him caned by his grandfather.

Those beatings had been worsening as Russ grew older. The last one, the month before, had left a scar across his back. He had still been limping from it. The Colonel’d had no patience with Russ’s hormonal shenanigans. He had been furious when he had found his grandson spying on Elena and her mother in the bathroom.

But Elena had been spooked – or grossed out. When Russ had pulled her away from the staircase, she had begun screaming. It had been a reflex to grab her by the throat. He’d had to keep her quiet!

Then, something had happened. He still wasn’t sure what it was exactly. The feel of Elena’s sweet body against his? Those big eyes of hers begging him, tears rolling down her soft cheeks? The sense of power? His body had gone from heart-pounding fear to sharp arousal. It had felt so good and the laxer her limbs went, the better it had felt.

But Russ had never had any intention of killing her. He had let go before it was too late. She had stumbled, though, her body weak, her eyes wide, and she had fallen down the stairs. He hadn’t pushed her either – well, neither had he caught her, but why would he have? Death had been an expedient way to keep the kid quiet.

He had left her there, crumpled at the foot of the stairs. He hadn’t even checked to make sure she was dead. He had just retreated back into his bedroom, feeling nothing for the girl now that the fun was over. There, he had unzipped again and touched himself. He had come so fast, so hard, that he had kept at it for a good hour, remembering every minute contraction and dilation of Elena’s irises, remembering how her body had sagged, slowly, remembering the rhythm of her breathing, the feel of her long, supple neck under his hands.

Of course, Russ had paid full price for Elena. His grandfather had known, somehow. That night, after the chaos had died down, the General had belted him to within an inch of his life. In retrospect, Russ didn’t mind, though. That night, his mother had tried to interrupt the thrashing – a rare show of strength on her part. For her insolence, her father had beaten her just as badly – and, Russ, watching it all from under swollen eyelids, had felt that same spark of arousal again.

He’d had sex for the first time a few months later but that girl’s memory had faded. The memory of Elena, on the other hand…

His eyes were on Gina Baraja but it was Elena he saw, and it was the memory of that first time that triggered his lust now. Just a flash of it, mind you, before he smiled comfortingly. “Hi. You’re Gina Baraja, honey?”

She nodded hesitantly, then she glanced at the other Baraja woman over her shoulder. The older version of her stood at the entry of the kitchen, leaning back against the door, arms crossed over her chest. For a second, Russ had the uneasy feeling that she was watching him – was wary of him. But that was impossible, of course, she was probably there for the girl – either curious or jealous of his attention.

But there was fear in the older girl’s eyes too. As well there should be. The small town of Blooms might sit between two big sanctuary cities, but Russ had a feeling that the Barajas were illegals. They had every reason not to trust the police.

All the better. Whatever he did here – and he would end up doing something, there was a good chance that it would go unreported.

He turned back to Gina. “Your friend Lily told me you two are in the same class?”

Instead of answering, the girl half-turned to her older relative and asked something in Spanish. Russ, irritated, understood nothing of the brief exchange that followed. The only words he could pick up were “Raquel” and “hermana”. Not Gina’s mother, then, her sister.

“Lily is a good kid,” Raquel said. “Did she do something wrong?”

“She did nothing wrong,” Russ said, struggling to maintain an even tone. The mask didn’t fit very well anymore. “I’d like to talk with Gina alone, Ms. Baraja.”

“I’m not leaving.”

He balled his fists at his sides. It was taking all his strength of will not to strike the older one. He hated that he had to play games now, so close to the goal.

“Fine.” He turned his back entirely on the woman, taking a seat and gesturing for Gina to sit with him. After a hesitation, she did. He almost licked his lips at how sweetly malleable she was. “Lily called the SFPD tip-line, Gina. She said she had seen a man we’re looking for.”

He pulled a picture of Peter Carlsen out of his shirt’s pocket. It was a small photograph of the Iceberg exiting the courtroom after being sentenced to prison for life. Gina leaned in to see the picture and withdrew with a gasp, her eyes widening.

Russ’s heartbeat picked up pace.

Yes! He had known this was coming from the moment he had listened to Lily Kohr’s voice on the tip-line. Others had discarded her because of her young age but he knew witnesses and he knew how a kid sounded when he or she was spinning stories. There had been a ring of truth to Lily’s – and a small detail too, one that had just clinched it for him.

The man she had seen, the man she identified as Peter Carlsen, had made a habit of jogging up and down the beach.

“I talked to Lily and she said you had seen the man too. Is it true?”

Gina nodded, then turned pleading eyes toward her sister. No mercy came from that quarter, just a gruff, “Tell the policeman, Regina.”

The kid drew a sharp breath and said, “I saw him, yes. Before Lily,” she added, then bit on her lip.

“Tell me everything you saw.”

“I, uh…I go to Lily’s house after Raquel leaves every morning.”

Raquel barged in the conversation, “Laurie Kohr drops the girls off to school. I work early.”

Gina nodded again.

Russ had to press, “You saw the man in the morning?”

“I see him all the time when I go to Lily’s house.”

Hot damn!

“When did you see him last?” Russ asked, trying to contain his excitement.

“Uh, I don’t know,” Gina admitted with a shrug. “Before the weekend? Maybe…last Monday? Lily said to avoid him after she called the number.”

She stared up at Russ with huge eyes. He rearranged his face into a more composed expression. “You did good. Do you know where that man lives?”

She shook her head mutely.

“Are you sure?” Russ asked a little desperately, grabbing the girl by the shoulders.

“Eh!” her hermana protested. “Let her go!”

She tried to pull his hands off Gina. He didn’t think. He backhanded her so hard that she fell on her fat ass, knocking her head back on the wall.

“Stay away,” Russ told her. Dismissing her, he shook the girl. “Are you sure you don’t know where he lives?!”

“I…I…No, I don’t…I just…he visto…el perro! Lo vi con un perro!” Her eyes filled with tears. “He visto…I just saw him with the dog.”

The dog?

“What dog? What kind of dog?”

“Just a dog,” she sobbed, crying in earnest. “It was hurt, and it was following him around. The man kept looking back like he could hear it, but he didn’t see it. It was funnnnnny.”

She was sniffling loudly.

A dog?! Russ went rigid with anger. A dog? He shook her some more. “Where was he coming from when you saw him?”

But, instead of answering, Gina Baraja went very still and fell silent with a gasp – and, in that silence, he clearly heard the sound of a shotgun being loaded. He froze. Just for a second, but it was too much. The kid used his distraction to break his hold on her and dart away through the kitchen’s door.

Turning around slowly, Russ saw the older Ms. Baraja standing by the fridge, holding a shotgun like she meant business. With a cold shiver, he realized that she had something he didn’t like in her eyes – something hard he had also seen in Nyssa Malik at times.

Maybe it had always scared him.

“Eh, there,” he began, confident he could talk her into lowering the weapon.

She pointed it toward his midriff, instead. “Get out,” she growled.

“Listen, honey…”

“Get out!” she barked.

He had Flores’s service and backup weapons on him, but he didn’t think he could get them out before she shot him. Damn, he hated firearms! Give him a knife any day, but guns were such crude, impersonal weapons.

“Let’s stay calm,” he told the woman soothingly. “You don’t want to shoot me, chica. You really don’t want to risk that kind of trouble with the police. You want to get deported or what?”

“I’ll take the risk,” she replied coolly. “Now, get out of my house slowly. Hands raised.”

She escorted him to the door.

Dumb luck, he thought resentfully. But she never stepped close enough that he could disarm her, and little Gina stayed well out of their way.

“Policia. I’m policia.”

“Get out!”

He stepped out.

“You’re making a mistake, Raquel. Mucho problemo for you.”

Raquel Baraja slammed the door shut behind him and locked him out of the house. He immediately drew his gun, contemplating ways to…ways he could…He was so angry he shook with it. Nobody messed with him. Nobody messed with Russel Pierce.

He kicked, and kicked, and kicked the door.

But he forced himself to stop and think past that, to study the bungalow with the cool detachment that had allowed him to remain incognito for so many years.

Right now, he was fairly certain that the Barajas wouldn’t call the police. They were more afraid of deportation than they were afraid of him. It was in his interest to keep things that way. If he got himself arrested right now, he would never make it out of the country. He was too close to his goal to get sidetracked by a damn Mexican!

No, he had to be smart, to get in his car and to drive away – making enough noise to ensure that those two heard him leave, of course. He would deal with Carlsen and his bitch, get his money back, sleep through the night.

Calm again, for a while, he wondered if the Barajas warranted a detour on his way out of the country. They were nothing. But then, he remembered the tone of Raquel’s voice as she had ordered him out of her house – like he was scum! Like some little immigrant bitch like her got to order him around! His fingers tightened around the gun. Oh, yes, such insolence simply had to be punished.

A nasty smirk on his face, he slid his ass on the car-seat and slammed the door. He made sure he revved the engine very loudly before he turned Mark’s car around and drove away.

Now, how to find Carlsen? The bastard was close, Russ could feel it. Maybe he could lay in ambush on the beach hoping to catch the SOB on his morning jog – but what if Carlsen decided not to take one, for some reason? What if the Barajas called 911?

Russ had to remember that he was a wanted man now. Yes, but the kid hadn’t given him nearly enough. Hell, she had given him nothing! He should go back and make her squeal like a pig. Stroking his gun lovingly, he considered going back to the Barajas’ right now. He just needed to give her the proper incentive. And sisters…That gave him a lot of potential incentive.

He drove past another car and, in the glow of its headlights, he saw himself in the rear-view mirror – he hadn’t bothered adjusting it, it was still set for Mark’s height. He had blood splatters on his face and shirt.

He swore. He had managed not to get either Flores, Mark or Tracy’s blood anywhere on his clothes. But there the Baraja bitch had gone, ruining his last shirt…The memory of her bleeding made him smile, though. Maybe he would make her bleed some more. Or maybe he would take her little sister, break the kid and send her back.

Breaking women was a fine art he had learned at his grandfather’s knees. He could take little Gina, use her hard and long until he was bored with her, until she was made afraid of her own shadow, addicted to pain, to a strong hand, to him. And then, he could cut her loose – sloppy seconds.

He wondered how Carlsen had enjoyed them. The idea of Carlsen and Nyssa fucking like minks ruined his good mood. Knowing how the bastard had always fancied himself a white knight, he had probably enjoyed that. Always scrapping wounded things out of the gutter…Bitches, dogs…

Dogs? Wait. Gina Baraja hadn’t given him nothing. She had given him the dog. But…

They wouldn’t, would they?

Shit, yes, the idiots would! The realization almost made him drive off the road. Hanging on to his composure by a thread, Russ pulled out next to a bank of payphones. Digging loose change out of his pocket, he dialed 4-1-1.

“Veterinarian in or around Blooms, California?” he asked.

Russ is gaining on Viggo and Nyssa. Want to know what they are doing? Read Chapter 19.1.