Bedlam Read online

  We raced to rendezvous with Clint and his team. Their SUV was parked diagonally across a sidewalk, as if they’d jumped the curb in order to cut off a man fleeing on foot. As we climbed out of our vehicle, I spied the Nampa Boy, sitting on the pavement, surrounded by Allsop’s men.

  He was young, no more than twenty, wearing the blue baseball cap that signaled his affiliation with the Boys. Somebody had slapped a pair of handcuffs on him. He must have resisted his captors. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and the skin around his left eye was puffy and discolored. Jaw set, he scowled defiantly as we approached.

  Brody dropped to his haunches next to the young man. “This can go one of two ways,” he said, his tone perfectly amiable. “You cooperate, you tell us what we want to know, and we’ll part as friends. Then you can skedaddle back to your buddies in Nampa.” Brody angled his head to one side, and his voice took on a menacing edge. “Refuse to cooperate, and things will get ugly. Oh, we’ll make you talk, no doubt about that.” He cocked his thumb at Jonesy. “My security chief is an expert at getting men to spill their guts.” He paused, probably for dramatic effect. Spill their guts. The double meaning raised the hairs on the back of my neck. The kid’s Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. “You’ll talk, and then we’ll let you rot in a cell in the old state pen,” Brody continued cheerfully. “The easy way or the hard way. Your choice.”

  “You think I’m stupid?” the young man sputtered. “No matter what I say, there’s no way you’ll let me go.”

  Jonesy crouched down next to Brody and drew his gun from its holster. “Let’s make this simple, boss.” He flashed his teeth, then pointed his weapon at the young man’s leg. “What’s your name, kid?”

  The young man’s brows drew together. “Daniel.”

  “You got a choice to make, Daniel. Answer Mr. Allsop’s questions, or we’ll see how you like a bullet in the knee.”

  Daniel’s gaze darted from Jonesy, to Brody, to Clint, to me, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing and sought validation of the words in our eyes.

  “Brody,” I said in a low voice. I didn’t sign on to kneecap a kid.

  Brody raised a hand, silencing me, then he sighed. “You’re right, Daniel. We’re not going to let you go, but we are willing to let you live. Here’s the deal. Answer one question, one simple question, and I guarantee that Jonesy won’t put a bullet in you.”

  “Fuck, man. You’ve already admitted that you lied about letting me go,” Daniel cried. “Why should I believe you now?”

  “Boss?” Jonesy tapped the barrel of the gun on the kid’s knee.

  “One simple question,” Brody repeated.

  Silence, then a grudging, “What?”

  “The woman and man you took from the Haven, the doctor and the nurse, where are they being held?”

  Daniel snorted. “Them? They’re not being held anywhere.” He shook his head, his mouth twisting bitterly. “It was a total shit show, and Pete’s in big trouble for it.”

  “What happened?” I demanded.

  “Pete was bragging, told them that we’d attacked the Haven, killed everybody there, and took all their stuff. ‘Boise belongs to us,’ you know? Then later, when he was walking them to lockup, the doctor chick did some kind of karate move on Pete, and the big guy punched his lights out. They took his gun, his keys, and his car.”

  “They escaped?” I gasped, scarcely able to wrap my head around the good news.

  “Yeah. They’re in the wind.”

  THIRTEEN

  Sunny

  I practically skipped down the stairs and along the hallway leading to Brody’s basement man cave. Not even the prospect of spending the evening in the company of one of my least favorite people could dampen my joy. The two bottles of French champagne we downed after dinner only added to my giddiness.

  Sara and Rocco had escaped. All wasn’t right in my world—not even close—but this was the best news I’d heard in forever. I was so stinking happy that when Brody invited Kyle and me to hang out in his man cave, I said yes without a second thought.

  “Hold up, Sunny,” Kyle called from behind me.

  “Okey dokey.” I spun around and lost my balance, wavering on my feet until Kyle caught up with me. He slung an arm around my waist, and I leaned against his chest, smiling to myself as we swayed back and forth.

  “You sure you’re up for this?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Yep,” I said. “Brody said he has a pool table. I want to play pool. I bet I’ll beat your socks off.” Wait. That wasn’t right. What was I trying to say? “I mean, I’ll knock your pants off.”

  “And she’s at point of the bacchanalia where she starts mixing up her cliches.” He chuckled.

  The double doors to the man cave swung open, and Brody poked his head out. “I thought I heard voices. Come on in.”

  “Hi, Brody,” I called.

  Kyle took my hand, and we followed Brody into his private retreat. My eyes turned immediately to a corner of the large room, where a Tiffany-style chandelier cast a circle of light on a carved mahogany pool table.

  “Fancy,” I said, letting go of Kyle’s hand and lurching toward the pool table. I took three steps, then something in my peripheral vision snagged my attention. I swiveled my head and froze in place.

  Not ten feet away, a full-grown cougar sprawled on the hearth of a stone fireplace, his massive paws outstretched, and his long tail curled upward at his side. Fur in shades of brown and cream covered his powerful body. Although in repose, he looked ready to pounce. Implacable yellow eyes bore into mine. I blinked. Did his pink nose just twitch?

  I staggered backward, unable to tear my eyes from the beast.

  “Sunny, you haven’t met LeRoy, have you?” Brody asked, dropping to his haunches. He held out a hand toward the cougar. “Here, kitty kitty.”

  “Are you crazy?” I hissed. Not even Brody Allsop would keep a pet mountain lion, would he?

  Brody laughed so hard that he fell backward onto his butt. “No worries,” he said, gripping the side of a coffee table and hoisting himself to his feet. “He’s not alive. Not anymore.”

  My panic retreated, and an odd combination of relief and horror roiled in my gut. I looked more closely at the cougar—a dead animal stuffed and mounted, frozen forever in a lifelike pose. Goose bumps skittered across my shoulders and down my arms.

  I turned my face away, and my gaze fell upon another dead beast. A brown bear reared back on his hind legs, so tall that his head almost touched the ceiling. Enormous claws slashed at the air, and he bared his teeth in a menacing rictus. Dead, yet wearing a convincing mask of life.

  “Dad and I shot the cougar in Texas,” Brody explained. “And we bagged the bear in Alaska.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that a douche like Brody was a fan of trophy hunting and taxidermy, but Jesus, killing and stuffing big animals? For fun? It absolutely boggled my mind.

  “Dad and I were supposed to hunt in Africa this summer,” he continued. “The damned flu messed up our plans.”

  Seriously? Brody was whining because the pandemic that wiped out most of the world’s population messed with his plans to shoot animals in Africa.

  “But one of Dad’s friends—a doctor in town—was a big game hunter, too. I’ve seen his safari room. Dude had some primo trophies. I had a couple of the security guys move the best ones over here.”

  Brody swept out his arm. Along the back wall of his man cave, the doctor’s primo trophies occupied a place of honor. A black-maned lion tackled a zebra, his mighty paws digging into the zebra’s striped back. Wearing what looked like a hairy gray shoulder cape, a baboon perched on a wooden ledge. A spotted dog-like creature—I think it was a hyena—posed on a rock. A gold-and-black leopard skin rug, complete with a snarling head and pointed teeth, draped across the back of a sofa. I gaped, open-mouthed. Was that even legal? At the sight of a giraffe’s head, mounted to the wall by its shoulders, my eyes welled with tears. It had to be seven o
r eight feet tall, its beautiful lifeless eyes framed by heavy lashes. The curve of its mouth gave the illusion that it was smiling. Smiling.

  I whirled on Brody. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  His shoulders shook with laughter. “Aw… is Sunny afwaid of the widdle animals?”

  Right. I was afraid of the dead animals. That was my problem. I wanted to knock that mocking expression from his face. I took a step toward him, my hands clenching into fists.

  Kyle pushed between Brody and me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, halting me midstep.

  “Remember, Sunny used to volunteer at animal shelters. You can’t expect her to be a fan of trophy hunting.”

  Brody rolled his eyes. “Tree-hugging hippie,” he muttered under his breath.

  I tugged against Kyle’s restraining arm, and he shot me a warning look. Closing my eyes, I mentally counted to ten. Nothing I said or did would change Brody’s mind about his precious trophies. Moreover, it couldn’t be a good idea to alienate a man whose father controlled a private army, an army they promised to deploy to protect Boise from the Nampa Boys.

  “I’m going to shoot some pool,” I said, swallowing back my anger. “Anybody want to join me?”

  “Before that, I want to show you guys something else,” Brody said, his tone eager.

  I couldn’t help myself.“More dead animal trophies?”

  “Nah, but this is just as good.” He led the way past the pool table, pausing next to a wall covered with mounted weapons. “You guys ever take a school field trip to the old state penitentiary? Did you see the weapons exhibit there? I had a bunch of the collection moved over here.”

  Brody pilfered stuff from a museum? Yeah, of course he did. I couldn’t even pretend to be shocked.

  “Check this out.” He pulled a curved knife from an ornately carved scabbard. “It’s an Arab jambiya knife. This sucker’s really old.” Laughing, he brandished the knife, stabbing an imaginary foe. He returned it to its scabbard, then pointed at the corner of the room. “A Civil War Gatling gun. I’ve got a German Howitzer, too. And a Tommy gun, like the gangsters used during Prohibition. And an Uzi.”

  The last of my happy buzz completely dissipated.

  “And Kyle, you’ll like this.” He waved his hand at a dozen swords mounted on hooks on the wall. “You were on the fencing team, right? Maybe we could spar sometime,” he said eagerly.

  Kyle’s brow wrinkled as he studied the precious historic weapons. If he was tempted to say something about the wisdom of fighting with museum-quality antique swords, he decided to keep it to himself. He shrugged. “Maybe we could.” He touched my shoulder. “You want to shoot some pool, Sunny?”

  “Yes, please,” I said, relieved that he changed the subject.

  The three of us played for about an hour, until I began to feel sleepy.

  “You can’t go to bed now,” Brody protested. “I have a surprise for you coming at ten o’clock.”

  “For me? What kind of surprise?” I asked, yawning.

  He made a face. “It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you.”

  “Okay.” I curled up on one of the leather recliners—definitely not the sofa with the leopard skin rug—and watched Brody and Kyle play a game of one-pocket pool. At 10 p.m. precisely, according to the clock on the wall, somebody knocked on the door to the man cave.

  “Come in,” Brody called.

  The door swung open, and a middle-aged woman stood in the doorway. She was wearing a gray housekeeping dress with a crisp white apron tied around her waist. With one hand on the doorknob, she balanced a wide silver tray on her hip.

  “Let me help you.” Kyle dashed across the room, took the tray from the woman, and carried it to the coffee table.

  She followed him, her hands fluttering nervously. “It’s quite all right, sir. I can manage.”

  “No problem,” Kyle said.

  “That will be all, Hildy,” Brody said.

  Hildy bobbed her head and exited the room.

  The tray held three silver, dome-shaped cloches. With a flourish, Brody lifted a cloche, revealing a bowl holding a mound of vanilla ice cream topped with hot fudge sauce and a cherry. Tucked on either side of the ice cream were walnut-studded brownies.

  “Jake told me once that brownie sundaes are your favorite dessert,” Brody said. “I had Hildy make them special for you.”

  Brownie sundaes were my favorite dessert, and I thought they were a thing of the past, that I’d never taste another one. Jake had told Brody that I love them, and Brody had remembered. I swallowed, the pain from Jake’s absence striking me anew. And Brody. Why had Brody gone out of his way to do something nice for me? One minute I was certain that he was an irredeemable creep, then he went and had his private chef make my favorite dessert.

  Kyle took my hand and gently squeezed it. “That was a really thoughtful thing to do, Brody,” he said.

  “Yes, it was.” I remembered my manners. “Thank you, Brody.”

  He grinned and lifted the two other cloches. “Let’s dig in.”

  I dipped a corner of a brownie into the ice cream and hot fudge, then moaned when the decadent chocolate touched my tongue. “I’ve missed this.”

  “If you and Kyle stick around, you can have brownie sundaes every day,” Brody said. He took another bite. “Now that we know that Sara and Rocco have escaped, we can focus on taking down the Nampa Boys. We won’t have to worry about your friends being hurt when we move against the bad guys.”

  “Thank God for that,” I said.

  “How about if you help us try to find the other scavengers, the ones who were out in the city when the Haven was attacked? They need to hear that the doctor and nurse got away, and we need to make plans for getting the Haven back on its feet,” Brody said. “You know where they live, don’t you?”

  “Not all of the scavengers, but some of them,” I answered.

  “That’s a start,” Brody said. “Tomorrow we’ll begin rebuilding Boise.”

  FOURTEEN

  Kyle

  The bedroom door rattled in its frame as a heavy body slammed against it. I squinted, struggling to raise my head.

  “No, Miles.” My lips hardly moved as I spoke the words.

  The flu had stolen every ounce of strength from my body, leaving my limbs leaden and weak, but I had no choice. I had to pick up the shotgun in my lap. I had to stop him before he killed me. Before he killed Kenzie.

  A knife blade pierced the flimsy wood, then retracted. A momentary reprieve.

  Shit, not again. My head swam. I knew what came next, still I held my breath. Maybe this time… this time…

  The blade tore a jagged hole in the door as he savagely pounded against the wood.

  “Miles.. Miles… don’t...”

  My fingers curled around the shotgun, and I strained with all my might, but I couldn’t lift it. Which was worse, if I succeeded in lifting the weapon, or if I failed? I knew what it would cost me to succeed, but failure had to be worse, didn’t it?

  The door splintered, and a hand reached through the hole. God. I pressed back against the chair, readying myself for what came next, for what always came next.

  “No… no… Miles.”

  My entire body jostled as someone roughly shook my shoulder.

  “Kyle, wake up. Wake up!”

  I sucked in a startled breath, and my eyes flew open. In the dim light I saw Sunny leaning on her elbow, one hand still on my shoulder.

  “You with me?” she asked.

  Nodding, I forced myself to sit up, then scrubbed at my face with my hands. “I had another bad dream.” I snorted. Talk about stating the obvious.

  Sunny sat up, too, and gently rubbed my shoulder. Without thought, I leaned toward her, allowing her touch to comfort me. After thirty seconds or so, I straightened.

  “Who’s Miles?” Sunny asked.

  I jerked and turned my head her way. “What?”

  “Whenever you have a nightmare, you call his name.”


  I gulped. I couldn’t tell Sunny what went down with Miles. I couldn’t plant those images in her brain. “It’s okay, Sunny. I can deal.”

  “It’s not okay,” she said. “And clearly you can’t deal. Maybe it would help to talk about it.”

  I shook my head frantically back and forth, rejecting the notion of spilling my guts to Jake’s little sister.

  She sighed. “I’m getting tired of your bullshit, Kyle. I’m not a little girl you need to protect from the world. Let me help you.”

  God, it was tempting to unburden myself, to allow someone—to allow Sunny—to console me. Maybe I could share a sliver of the memory without burdening her with all the gory details.

  She must have seen the uncertainty flicker in my eyes, because she pressed her advantage. “Come on, Kyle. It’s not working for you to carry this by yourself.”

  “Miles was my friend.” I spoke quickly before I could relent. “A truly good guy. We both came down with the flu.” I closed my eyes against the memory, then snapped them open, meeting her compassion-filled gaze. “He developed symptoms a day before I did, and the disease ran its course more quickly in him than in me. I was weak, barely able to lift my head, but Miles… shit… Miles...”

  “The flu mania,” she guessed.

  “Yeah. My friend was gone. All that was left was a crazed shell of a man intent on doing violence. It came down to him or me. And if he killed me, there was a good chance he’d turn on Kenzie next.”

  Sunny’s eyes widened at the mention of my ex. “Kenzie?”

  “Miles was her cousin,” I said. “I couldn’t risk him attacking her. And I couldn’t leave her to defend herself against a man she loved. So I did what I had to do. I shot him.”

  “Oh, Kyle.” Sunny’s voice broke. She wrapped both arms around me and pressed her face against my neck. Her tears soaked into my skin. “I’m so sorry.”

  Did it make me a wimp that it felt damned good to be held? Ripper had become the gold standard in my mind for how a man comports himself in the post-pandemic world. A man took care of business. He protected his people. He kept his word. If Ripper ever showed weakness or vulnerability, I never saw it. Didn’t mean that it never happened, I supposed. Who knew what went down between him and Kenzie when they were alone.