The Fifth to Die: A gripping, page-turner of a crime thriller. J.D. Barker
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Название: The Fifth to Die: A gripping, page-turner of a crime thriller
Автор: J.D. Barker
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Ужасы и Мистика
isbn: 9780008250409
isbn:
“He was a horrible man,” she said quietly. “Not to me but to so many other people.”
Porter considered telling her something to the contrary, try to build him up, thought better of it. She was a big girl. She deserved the truth. “It’s important to remember he’s not you. He never was.”
Tears welled up in her eyes, and she fought them back. “That’s not what the press says. They say it’s worse now than ever. All his assets going to a kid, leaving nobody to run the business. Building inspectors shut down one of his skyscrapers last month, and the press blamed me. Nearly four thousand lost jobs.”
Porter knew the building. Talbot had used substandard concrete in the construction. When the shortcut was discovered, he’d tried to retrofit the building (and most likely pay off inspectors), but the project was shut down anyway. The building cost a little over $700 million dollars, and it was set for implosion. Better to end it now, Porter supposed, than let construction complete and the thing topple over down the road.“They’re trying to sell papers. How could that be your fault?”
“There’s a lot of fighting going on at Talbot Enterprises,” Emory explained. “Three of my father’s senior officers are contesting his will. They’re saying he drafted it under duress, that my mother forced him to leave everything to me. With all of them making grabs for the money, key decisions aren’t happening, and things are falling apart. I’m not old enough to assume control, so Patricia Talbot stepped in as interim CEO until somebody can take over full-time.” Emory let out a sigh. “She’s suing me directly. She claims my father didn’t have the right to leave all that he did to me, that everything rightfully belongs to her. Then there’s Carnegie . . .”
Porter knew all about Carnegie, Talbot’s other daughter. She regularly made the papers before Talbot died. Constant partying and arrests, a fixture on the Chicago social scene, and not a good one.
“She’s been badmouthing me on social media and in every interview she does, whenever she gets the chance,” Emory said. “She calls me Bastard Bitch. She ends every message with hashtag BastardBitch. I’ve never met her, and she acts like she’d stab my eyes out with a pen in the street if we were to cross paths.”
With that, the tears did come, and Porter put an arm around her.
After a minute or so she wiped her eyes. “I’m being so selfish, going on about me. What about you? How are you doing?” Emory asked. “I heard about those girls. The papers say it’s 4MK. That they wouldn’t have been taken if it wasn’t for you. The Tribune actually said you let him go, which is silly. I should know.”
“It’s not 4MK.”
“No?”
“Nope,” Porter replied.
Emory shook back the tears and forced a smile. “You’ll find them. You found me.”
Porter hoped to God she was right.
Nearly an hour had passed. He had to go.
Emory somehow understood. She rose from the couch, and when he did too, she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. “I can’t talk to a shrink. Maybe we can talk sometimes? If you’re willing to listen?”
“I think I’d like that.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
When Porter left Flair Tower, the hole in his heart felt a little smaller.
“No! No more!” Lili screamed.
The man reached for her anyway, his large hands tugging at the quilt wrapped around her. “We must continue,” he said.
Lili scrambled across the damp floor, sliding, her feet slipping, trying to get a grip on the damp concrete. She found herself in the back corner of the cage, unable to go any farther. “Please stop!” No place else to go.
The man raised the stun gun and pointed it at her. He pressed the button, and Lili watched lightning jump across the two metal prongs, smelled ozone in the air. “One more hour, then we can do it again, I promise. I promise.” She tried to say this, but she shivered so hard that only a handful of syllables actually came out, fragments of words.
If they did it again, this would be the fourth — no, fifth time. Wait, maybe the third time. She couldn’t be sure. Her thoughts didn’t want to come together; her string of consciousness had a knot, something that kept her brain from working properly. White flakes whirled across her vision, making it difficult to see what was happening around her, a snowstorm in the basement, that’s what it looked like, a whiteout of haze and gray.
He reached for her through the snow, the fingers of his left hand outstretched. “Now, while we’re close.”
His other hand, the one with the stun gun, drew within an inch of her, the gun nearly touching her neck. Lili couldn’t take the pain of another shock. It felt like fire chewing at her bones, gnawing away from her inside out. A pain worse than dying.
She knew what that felt like now too, to die.
He thrust the stun gun at her face, pressed the button again near her eye.
“Okay!” she shouted. At least, she tried to shout. Only the sound of the letter k left her throat from somewhere behind chattering teeth.
The man pulled back, if only slightly. His free hand scratched at the knit cap, at the festering incision beneath.
Lili tried to stand, but her feet failed her, her legs folded, made of jelly now.
He reached in and offered a hand. His nails were bitten to the quick, the tips of his fingers red and puffy
Lili’s fingers wrapped around his. His palm felt cold, clammy. She didn’t want to touch him, but she knew she couldn’t stand on her own, not now. And she had to stand. She had to do this willingly, or it would only hurt more. He would make it hurt more.
He led her from the cage, Lili putting most of her weight on him to stay upright.
When they reached the water tank, she looked up at him. She looked deep into his cloudy, lifeless eyes. “Thirty minutes, please. Just let me rest.”
“We’re too close.”
Lili stared at him for a long time, the seconds ticking away like hours. Finally, she nodded. Lili released her hold on the quilt around her neck, and the tattered material fell to the ground, pooling at her feet. She hadn’t gotten dressed again after the last time. Not after he said they would do it again in a few minutes. Instead, she only curled up with the quilt, the soft green quilt, her quilt. She curled up with the quilt in her cage and waited. She saw the clothing he gave her — his daughter’s clothing, СКАЧАТЬ