A Bone to Pick Read online

  “I’ll be shutting these bastards down. And after I’m finished, that will only be a dent. This goes on all over the world, as you say. People are getting away with it,” Hellen grouched, setting her tea down.

  “Honey, all we can do, is all we can do. Just know, you’re doing a lot, dear. I know Vivian is smiling down at you right now. She was always very proud of the work you did, even though she didn’t know most of it.”

  “Our Viv was an odd bird,” Hellen said and finished her tea.

  “She was, and we loved her all the more for it. You two are very much alike, you know,” Wanda said and smiled at the surprised look on Hellen’s face.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, and that is one of the many reasons why we love you too.”

  §

  It was late afternoon when Hellen turned over in the bed. She wasn’t sure what had woken her up. She let out a long sigh. It was nice having Wanda there that morning. It reminded her of a debriefing. She sniffed at that. She hadn’t told Wanda about the young girl Bojo had brought to his apartment. What a mess.

  She was still angry with herself for that rookie move. She should have stayed close enough to view Bojo getting into his vehicle, but she hadn’t and had the complication of the girl to deal with. She had zapped Bojo a couple more times and then carried the girl into his bedroom. The child was nearly as big as herself and sweat popped out along her ribs as she took the girl into the bedroom. In the end, the wolf had to help her. Securing the girl with torn up sheets, she placed a gag over the girl’s mouth, shut the bedroom door, and went back to the living room where she secured Bojo with sturdy zip ties. Although it had not been the ideal situation, she had gotten the information she needed.

  Apparently Ellsworth’s enterprises extended far, and the list of people involved was long. A doctor, police officers, a detective, and so many more. Hellen wanted to spend a lot of time torturing the man, but with the girl in the next room, she was pressed to get the answers quickly. She had used Bojo’s kitchen utensils to aid her. The man was so large that she had to question him prone and he had squirmed like a worm on a hook. He was too big for the chairs and would more than likely break them in his attempt to free himself, so she left him on the floor. She’d used double her zip ties; she did not want this man getting loose. Her werewolf could kill him easily, but she really needed information.

  “Once I take this gag out, you’ll answer all my questions quickly and quietly. Raise your voice or scream and I’ll wrap your intestines around your neck, like I did to Mike,” she lied. She allowed her wolf to surface, her eyes glowed and her face shifted under her skin. She let her claws grow.

  Bojo’s eyes had gone wide with fear and he had quickly nodded. When she’d taken the gag out, she thought he was going to scream, but he hadn’t and he’d willingly provided the information she needed. After shoving the gag back into his mouth, she had proceeded to kill him slowly. This time there was a lot of blood. She had given him an injection of a paralytic so he wouldn’t thrash around. His brain was conscious through it all, his body unable to move.

  The werewolf was satisfied to watch and let her do her thing.

  She had cut the skin away from the top of his head and had taken an old Dremel tool from her sister’s garage. Although old and rusted, it still ran and she’d put the small saw attachment onto it. She had cleaned and oiled it and wiped it down, so there were no fingerprints, keeping it in a sterile plastic bag until she needed it and then using it to saw into Bojo’s skull.

  Bojo had screamed through the gag but it was muffled by the high whine of the cutting tool. She had cut the top portion of his skull and when she had begun to lift the top of the cranium up, his body began to convulse.

  “As you die, I want you to think of all the children you hurt. Of all the evil you did. I don’t know if there is a Heaven or Hell, but I’m making sure that your last moments on Earth are equivalent to what you did to others.”

  She then took several of the kitchen implements and embedded them into his exposed brain. After a few minutes, he stopped moving, though he was still breathing. His eyes were still open but the eyeballs were looking in different directions. Hellen got up and went to the bedroom to check on the girl. When she realized she was awake, her eyes open and searching the darkness, Hellen sprayed her again and the girl’s eyes closed. She took the gag off the child and left her. Going back over to Bojo, she found his phone and his burner phone. She had the information she needed from his cell so she dialed 911 and left the phone beside Bojo’s body.

  The first hint of dawn was lighting the far eastern sky. It was overcast and there was the hint of ozone in the air. Rain was heading their way. She moved quickly away from the apartment and saw no one out and about. Getting to her vehicle, she pulled off her dark clothing. She wore coveralls for just such occasions. While she tried to keep things clean, sometimes blood just got all over the place.

  Hellen had taken a circuitous route to the nightclub and restaurant. She was running behind but managed to set fires at both establishments before the sun was completely up. She avoided street cameras, using side streets and back alleyways. The night before, she had hidden innocuous containers filled with an incendiary concoction that would set each place ablaze.

  She found her way home, stopping only once at a dumpster to dispose of the coveralls.

  She hadn’t been home ten minutes when Wanda had come over. The woman must have been waiting and watching for her. Hellen stretched, then hung her head in defeat. The tea was just the thing—ginger, turmeric, and honey. She thought again about what Wanda had said about Vivian being a lot like her. Widget came over to her, purring loudly. The cat began to knead Hellen’s stomach with her large paws. Her eyes were half-closed and Hellen’s hand drifted up to stroke the cat’s head.

  With a groan, she sat up and rubbed her hands over her face and head. She could feel the fine burr of her patchy hair.

  She dropped her hands between her knees and the light from the window hit them. She stared at them and the veins that spread out just below the surface. She noticed that one of her knuckles was slightly enlarged and realized that it looked like an old lady’s hand. When had she gotten old? She flexed her hand and felt the twinge in the knuckle.

  “Guess I’m not superhuman after all, even with my wolf,” she said to Widget, who was ramming her head into Hellen’s shin. Was it age that was now stealing her strength and not cancer? She was better, much better than she had been, but she was now feeling her sixty years.

  Her gaze went to the bottom shelf of the nightstand and she pulled out the photo album. She blew off the dust and part of her brain told her she needed to do a little house cleaning. Her finger went to the upper edge of the album and fingered a dark dried spot. Blood. She opened the book and saw old photographs under plastic sheeting.

  Slowly, she turned the pages of the album. She had seen these pictures years ago and they had meant nothing to her. Her finger traced the lines of a much younger Vivian. An unconscious lift creased her lips at the laughing image of her sister holding a six-year-old Hellen. Hellen studied her own childish face and there was a hint of a smile on the little girl’s countenance. She didn’t remember this picture.

  She turned the page and saw another picture of Vivian holding a malnourished two-year-old Hellen.

  Her finger went over the face of the toddler. The large eyes were blank and there was no animation on the baby’s face. It was as though the child had no clue what was going on. Even if she did, there was no emotion there. A blank stare. Hellen’s eyes prickled and blinked. There was a sense of sorrow for that child who didn’t understand, who didn’t feel. A child who had never been loved until she was taken away to live with a family of strangers. She was glad she’d gone back and killed those six at the orphanage. It was the right thing to do. She heard a whine deep within; her werewolf agreed.

  She wondered if she would even be alive today if it hadn’t been for Ralph and Helene Marigold. Would
she even now be prostituting herself to survive? When her wolf emerged, would they have killed it? Killed her? Would she have killed those people later in her life? Would she be in prison? Would the government have gotten to her and dissected her wolf?

  Hellen didn’t know and was glad that she didn’t. She might have been handicapped by the lack of connection and emotion, but she had lived a full life. Not a normal life, that was for sure, but a full life and one she could not regret. Her werewolf had thrived and was a part of her.

  She sighed and shut the photo album, placing it back on the bottom shelf. No, if she had a choice, she would not change her life. There was satisfaction stamped on her face. She might be getting old and her body might betray her, but it didn’t take a whole lot of strength to pull a trigger and her wolf was feeling a whole lot stronger these days. A soft chuckle filled the bedroom and she got up.

  “I think tonight Momma’s gonna go target practicing, Widget. I’m gonna blow the heads off dealers. What the heck? Send them scurrying into their holes.”

  She walked to the bathroom and turned on the shower. She would get out her Tikka T3X Tac A1 rifle and go hunting. She’d had the rifle modified and the suppressor ensured a quiet kill. Stepping into the shower, Hellen began to hum, “A-Hunting We Will Go.”

  FIVE

  Leon slammed the phone down, causing the plastic casing on the handset to crack. Bojo was dead. Murdered. Though he was still breathing, he was dead for all of that, it was only a matter of time.

  Shit!

  Leon looked down at his fists; they were shaking violently. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the financial losses or the fact that Brown had been butchered in his own apartment and no one heard a thing. Not only that, the stupid bastard had brought home one of the girls. How could he have been so stupid?

  This was now looking like a takeover. One of his men on the inside reported that the top of Bojo’s skull was cut open like a freaking can of soup. Bojo’s fingers were into chunks, then his hands removed. Then all of his long bones broken and shattered and the man had lived through it all! His man said that there were things embedded into Bojo’s exposed brain. What kind of people did these things?

  Leon shuddered. Bojo was now in intensive care and wasn’t expected to live. His sources would keep him apprised of Bojo and the investigation. It had taken Leon over a decade to set in place the cutouts to move and sift out information, leaving an extensive gap between himself and the dirty goings on. He needed to be kept clean from all that shit. It was essential that he maintain his sterling façade.

  Thinking of Bojo sent a shiver down his spine. The man’s eyes, tongue, and ears were removed as well.

  Dammit!

  Bojo was reported by his own phone. Someone had used his burner phone as well. Leon reached into his drawer and took out the burner phone and destroyed it. He took the SIM card and destroyed it as well, then threw it into the trash.

  He gritted his teeth at the thought of Bojo’s junk being removed, shoved into the man’s mouth. It was a wonder that Bojo had not bled to death.

  Shit! Shit! Shit!

  Leon gagged and swallowed hard. He reached for the crystal carafe and poured water. He gulped it down, pushing the mental images away.

  His source said that the girl was tied up and left on Bojo’s bed, unharmed. Why had she been left? Did the perpetrator not realize there was someone else there? Why hadn’t she been killed or taken? Had the girl seen the killer or killers? There were so many questions and seemingly no answers and it wasn’t a place that Leon liked to be in. He had his fingers on the pulse of Charlotte.

  Whoever was trying to take over wasn’t playing around. They knew about the bar and restaurant, but how? Had Brown been sloppy in the paperwork? Did they torture him for information before they pin cushioned his brain? Leon was sure he’d be hearing from Detective Down soon. He hoped for his sake that the place was insured.

  “Fuck!” he snarled in a low, desperate voice and pounded his fists on his thighs. Could Bojo have told his tormentors about him? Was he in trouble or in danger of being hit? He went to the window and looked out over the city. He paced, trying to see who was out there killing his people. He would have to deal with this shit fast. First Mike, now Bojo, and would this lead back to him? Had he put up enough blinds and subterfuge to keep himself shielded from his back-alley dealings? To the people around him, he was squeaky clean. There weren’t many people who knew his face or his name. He felt the buzzing in his pants and reached for another burner phone.

  “Yeah?” he barked.

  “The whole load was taken. Someone tipped the cops off and they’re all gone.” It was Parker.

  “Are you fucking kidding me? Where?”

  “At the warehouse.”

  “How about Tulip Park and Myrtle Bay?” Leon asked, his hand massaging his dark eyebrows.

  “Those are secure,” Parker answered.

  “How many at the Stables?” He didn’t really want to know; he saw dollar signs flying out the window.

  “Only four and they were all deaf, dumb, and blind. Bojo took one of the girls from the warehouse, there were six there all together.”

  “I know about the girl Bojo took. Did you hear what happened to Bojo?”

  “Yeah, fuck me. Jessy told me. He’s at the hospital now. Keeping a low profile, but he’ll call me and let me know what’s going on with Bojo,”

  “Alright, hunker down for a bit. Keep the rest of ’em doped. Tell Jessy to get ‘em out as soon as he can,” Leon ordered.

  “Boss, are we in trouble? Is someone tryin’ to take over?”

  “Hell, if I know. Keep your mouth shut and get the merchandise moved as soon as you can.”

  Leon hung up the phone, went over to his desk, and sat down with a heavy sigh. The six were new and hadn’t been processed, and the four were kept drugged up, so none would have any kind of real intel for the cops. Only disoriented, like the one Bojo had taken home.

  Dammit! What the fuck was he thinking?

  If Bojo wanted to sample the girl he should have done it at the warehouse. Was this happening at the other sites? It sounded like he needed to bring the hammer down on his people.

  Maybe he was becoming too lax, too easy. He hadn’t gutted anyone in a long time, well over a year. Perhaps he needed to bring the fear back into his little organization. But first he had to find out what in the hell was going on.

  At least the ten had nothing to give the cops. Keeping the merchandise loopy was good. It screwed with their memories and thought processing as well as kept them quiet. But shit, ten was a hell of a lot of money out of his pocket. Someone was fucking with his business. He was confident his people on the inside of the police force would let him know of any intel that came their way.

  Why call the cops? Why not just take my merchandise? Is someone sending a message? Is that it? he wondered.

  He’d button up his people and caution them. For now, that was all he could do. He didn’t like this feeling of helplessness, nor did he like the fact that someone was hitting his businesses left and right. It was surgical and very strategic.

  Fuck.

  He’d have to make sure to insulate himself. He’d built up a solid business, but it was a dull life, walking the straight and narrow.

  His other life was like a narcotic. Getting away with all the shit he did, that was the rush. Power over people. Having and using disposable people. Having people kiss his ass. He liked that. No, he wouldn’t walk away. He’d figure it out and strike back. He just needed to know who to strike back at.

  There was also the issue with remaining in the background. There were only a handful of people who actually knew who he was and had seen his face. Most of the people who worked for him, only knew him as Mr. E. They had never seen his face nor had he had any ties or connections to them. Most, if not all, his business was done by Bojo, Berry Cleves, Parker, Hoyd, and Duncan. They were his cutouts and the face of his illicit enterprises. Each was paid handsomely for
their loyalty and silence.

  Only Detective Down and Officer Waywood knew Leon by face as well. All other police contacts went through those two. Again, it had taken over a decade to set his empire in place, to remove him from the façade. It was all starting to crumble down around him and he didn’t even know where to look. Hopefully Waywood and Down could snoop around and get some kind of idea what he was facing. Until then, he could only tighten things down and make sure he didn’t hemorrhage money.

  §

  Detective Ross Down hung the phone up and dropped his head into his hands. His club was gone, fucking gone. Dammit! It was all because of fucking Bojo and his shit. That fucker. It was a good thing he was dead. Down winced at the thought. Bojo had died three hours ago. It was lucky he died. Had Bojo lived he’d have been screwed up for the rest of his miserable life. Down couldn’t even imagine what kind of vegetable Bojo would be; he’d heard that the top of his head had been taken off. Down thought about swinging by to check him out, but didn’t have the courage to do that. He didn’t want to be noticed doing so either. There was no way he wanted anyone seeing him. Besides, he was pretty sure they had hidden the hideous sight of the man.

  Bojo’s restaurant burned down, as did their club. That club was Down’s baby, his retirement plan. It was doing great and now this! Dammit! He slammed his fist down on the desk and his coffee spilled over. He jumped up from the desk and pushed himself back, hissing profanities. Opening a desk drawer, he pulled out paper towels and began mopping up the mess.

  Another detective stuck his head in the door. “Hey, Ross, everything okay?”

  “Yeah, spilled my fucking coffee,” he growled.

  “You hear about that guy that got butchered up? Died earlier. Totally fucked up, man.” The detective sniggered.

  Ross didn’t say anything; he didn’t want this shithead knowing that he’d known anything about the dead man. He didn’t need people asking him questions. Very few of the department knew about Down and Brown Speakeasy. Leon had warned him about that because questions would arise about the money obtained to open such a club, as well as his association with Bojo.