Note: This novel is now completed (as of 11/22/08).

Perilous Safety

By Rich Bullock

Jack Clayton dies suddenly, leaving Natalie with grief, bills, and a nasty mother-in-law.

Now, someone wants her dead.

Natalie flees to her only sanctuary: her late aunt’s cottage in Perilous Cove.

On the rugged California coast, she builds a new life and identity.

But life isn’t safe, especially not in Perilous Cove.

Chapter 1

He’d killed once before. Then, it had been personal. Tonight would be…different. New. Exciting.

Tarz Broderick kicked the shoe of the poor schmuck sprawled against the wall. The man’s head came up and his eyes slowly focused. Duct tape secured his wrists and ankles. Three outside wraps with three more in-between. Inescapable.

“Nick Moreno, I presume.” Tarz gave a slight bow from the waist to the man whose eyes darted wildly as consciousness returned. Blood ran from a gash in his temple. “Too bad you picked tonight to work late, but it sure was nice of you to leave the alley door unlocked.”

Careless.

Tarz smiled at him, then turned to survey the small desk area. The office should have been deserted. It could have been a simple job, easy in and out. But that’s why they called it work, as dear ole daddy liked to say—often right before a whipping began.

Tarz yanked the handles of the filing cabinet, a four-drawer, putty-colored unit of superior quality. Locked. He didn’t have time to mess with it, so he hoisted his pry bar, wedged it into the drawer crack, and hit the end with his palm to drive it home.

He probably should have come back later when the man was gone, but he’d rounded the corner into the L-shaped office and there Nick had been, working under the light from a single desk lamp. Oh, well. Plus, he’d promised to drop by his sister’s apartment tonight, so he couldn’t be too late. Dumb girl had gotten pregnant by a married man. She wasn’t saying who. Tarz chuckled at that and leaned on the pry bar. She knew her big brother too well to give the slimeball a name.

Tarz shrugged and worked the bar back and forth. Family was family. The money for tonight’s job would buy a nice baby gift for Sis and keep him living high for a couple of months at least.

And next week’s job… Tarz smiled at the thought of the much larger remuneration—word-of-the-week from his Improve Your Vocabulary calendar. Arson by itself paid pretty well, but combining it with a hit—well, that elevated Tarz to a new level in his career. In a way, tonight with Nick was a practice run for next week. His fingertips itched in anticipation and he patted his right pants pocket to double-check the packet of matches. The smile disappeared from Tarz’s face. His first job hadn’t been for money. It had been for himself, permanently ending the beatings.

The filing cabinet bowed, resisting the bar for a few seconds before the drawer popped open, squealing on bearings long overdue for grease. He clucked his tongue.

“There’s no excuse for neglecting the simple maintenance of fine equipment, Nick.”

Nick didn’t respond, at least not verbally; the duct tape across his mouth effectively silenced him. His eyes said everything: anger, hate, fear.

Tarz waved the bar in Nick’s direction. “You have to set a schedule, Nick. A squirt of WD-40 on the first of each month does wonders.” He was tempted to look around for some lubricant and do it himself, but fought down the urge. In a few minutes it wouldn’t matter.

He thumbed through the drawer’s packed folders, searching for the information he was paid to find. There it was: 16 Corporate Center Drive, St. Louis, MO. A fire in a business park. He slipped out the thick manila folder and opened it on the desk.

Though a poor fighter, Nick was an organized man, and that pleased Tarz. The Table of Contents listed a Conclusion section and a reference to Potential Suspects. This particular fire hadn’t been one of his jobs, but he could admire another’s work. He flipped through text and several pages of photos of a burned commercial building. His fingers stroked the glossy pictures of blackened walls, skeletal desks, and collapsed beams.

Beautiful.

The phone rang, shattering the silent room. Tarz cursed and jolted into the file cabinet drawer, gouging his back.

The ringing continued, a third and fourth time, obscenely shrill in the still office.

Probably the little woman. He glanced at the framed photo on the desk, a smiling foursome in bright colors. Nick sat in a straight-back chair while his pretty blonde wife stood behind him, her hand on his shoulder. A blonde teenage girl knelt with an arm on Nick’s leg, and a boy with striking resemblance to Nick stood tall beside the mother. Tarz’ teeth ground together. The perfect family. Nothing like his own.

The phone fell silent.

Tarz slammed the offending file drawer shut, all thought of treating equipment well abandoned.

Page twenty-three of the folder held a single address and name: 19 Old Country Road, Steerman, MO. He read the suspect’s name, a smile pulling the corners of his mouth. “Well, well.” He had to admire the old bat. No wonder she wanted the investigator’s arson report on the burned commercial property.

Tarz held the new folder before Nick’s face.

“I think I’ll make a copy of this before I turn it over to my employer. Always good to have insurance, Nick.” He laughed at the joke. Nick could appreciate its appropriateness.

The bound man struggled against the tape around his wrists and ankles. His right eye had nearly swollen shut now. Blood ran from the wound and dripped off his jaw onto the white, short-sleeved shirt. Probably a slight fracture around the eye socket if Tarz knew his injuries…and he did.

“Well, I’d love to stay and chat, but I got to go.” For a moment he simply looked at Nick. He could use the crow bar to put Nick out of his misery. Or he could let him live a minute or two longer and enjoy the last of his life.

With a shrug, Tarz turned away. It wouldn’t be half the fun if he couldn’t imagine Nick waiting, watching.

He opened the first of two, 2-liter soda bottles and poured its contents across the open drawers of folders and across the mahogany desk.

“Excuse me, Nick,” he said, keeping the gasoline away from the man’s legs. “It’s always dangerous to get gas on your clothes, you know.” He’d learned that one from dear old daddy.

Tarz opened the second bottle and continued to slosh the fluid down the hall carpet to the back door of the office where he tossed the bottles into a wire trash basket. Plastic melted immediately in a fire, obliterating fingerprints. Couldn’t be too careful.

“Ac-cel-er-ant.” He let the four syllables roll off his tongue, the last two speeding together, mimicking the meaning of the word. It sounded, well, professional.

Pungent fumes filled the air, and he touched his right thigh where his dad had splashed the gas before flipping a lit cigarette at him. The hard scar tissue still itched.

Tarz opened the matchbook cover, exposing the row of red-tipped sticks. Straightforward, yet so effective. Beautiful in their design simplicity.

When he was ten years old, he’d accidentally discovered their awesome potential in some dry brush behind an old barn. The memory of the towering flames, the shrieking of the three horses within the barn, still brought a smile. Watching from behind a fallen oak at the edge of the field, he beheld his career.

As he gripped one match to tear it off, a scratching noise came from a doorway to his right. He snatched up his pry bar, heart in his throat, when a small yip-yip stopped him. His eyes watered in the fume-laden air, but he tiptoed to the tiny kitchen area of the office and peeked around the doorframe. A cardboard box, circled by a large red ribbon and bow, sat on the linoleum floor and contained the source of his near heart attack.

Smiling, he set down his weapon and picked up the warm bundle.

“Hey there, little feller.”

The puppy licked his hand and face in exuberant enthusiasm, free at last of its cardboard prison. He twisted so much Tarz almost dropped him.

“Nick,” he called down the hallway. Although the man was hidden from view, Tarz knew he could hear him. “I’m takin’ care of the dog for you. Didn’t want you to worry. Stay warm now, hear?”

He laughed at his joke, then cracked open the outside door and checked the alley before stepping out. He blocked the self-closing door with his knee. Juggling both the folders and squirming puppy took some doing, but he managed to tear one match free. He held the matches outside in the fume-free air, lit the one, and then touched the flame to the rest of the open book. They ignited with a small whoosh and flared intensely, briefly revealing the dark brick alley walls and shadowed dumpsters. He held the book up, admiring the surging fire, and turned it until the stems caught.

Then in one smooth motion, he flipped the matchbook onto the fuel-soaked carpet and kicked the door closed. The steel security door muffled a much larger, satisfying whoosh.  Shushing the puppy, Tarz pressed his ear against the cold surface and listened to the escalating crackling. His heart rate increased as he imagined the inferno, wishing he could be inside with the beautiful yellow and orange just one time. He sighed and straightened. In the dim light of the strip mall alley, he could barely make out the stenciled lettering on the sign on the rough wall: Nick Moreno, Independent Insurance Investigations, St. Louis, Missouri.

“It’s been nice doing business with you, Nick Moreno,” he whispered.

On the wall below the sign, a cut chain dangled from the office’s sprinkler system emergency shutoff valve. Tarz had made sure water wouldn’t spoil this job.

“You were almost a hot dog, little feller.” He chuckled softly and scratched the wriggling dog’s chin.

One last time he gazed longingly at the door. The only bad thing about using duct tape is you can’t hear them scream. Then he faded into the sultry night.

Perilous Cove – Copyright, Nov 2006 by Rich Bullock