The knee that hit him in the solar plexus hurt, but George was almost beyond feeling anything. He grunted but didn’t let go of the man he held against the wall.
“You’re about to get me angry, George. Don’t do that.” The broad, almost brutal face looked different, but he barely noticed the transformation. George was too busy losing his ability to stay calm.
“Where is she!?!”
The man sighed and slammed his knee into George a second time with far more effect. George let go of him and staggered back, his body bent over on itself and he fell against the far wall, gasping for air.
The stranger jumped as he landed on his feet and in the space of a heartbeat, he had his hands on George’s lapels and was returning the favor. George was not a small man, he was taller than average and a little heavier than was healthy, but the man shook him like a temperamental toddler and slammed him into the wall with enough force to crack the plaster.
“You’re not listening to me, George! I said if you don’t behave yourself you’ll never see Cheryl alive again! Pay attention!” The voice was deeper than before and rumbled; the blue eyes had gone so dark they looked almost black, and when the man spoke his lips peeled away from teeth that barely seemed to fit inside his mouth.
“You don’t get to hit me, George. You don’t get to threaten me. The only reason you’re even alive is because I’m nicer than most of my kind and I decided to let you have a fighting chance.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” George struggled, even with the wind knocked out of his body and the giant of a man — six foot four? Hardly, closer to six foot eight! — holding him off the ground it was hard for him to listen to the words and make himself calm down.
“You told them to stop, George. I’m giving you points for that. But you didn’t even try to make them stop. You just watched.”
The Incredible Growing Man spun George in a half-circle and threw him toward the distant kitchen. George was reunited with the floor in a painful collision that left his arms tangled with a chair from the dining room set and eyes that refused to focus.
Before he could get to his feet, or even to his knees, the man was back again and this time he took the offensive, pushing one foot against George’s neck and pinning him in place. “Keep it up, George, and I’ll tear Cheryl’s heart from her body. Do you understand me?”
George stopped struggling and took several deep breaths, focusing himself, pulling back from the anger that still threatened to erupt. Finally he nodded, knowing that all the rage in the world wouldn’t help him right now.
The man nodded and stepped back, his face still locked into a snarl. “Good. Listen to me and listen carefully. Go about your life like nothing is out of the ordinary. I’ll be in contact with you in a few days.” He moved toward the front door. “Don’t get stupid, George. You do anything you shouldn’t, and Cheryl will be the one who pays for it. Oh, and keep that temper of yours at the ready.” He paused and looked back at George, still on the ground. “You’re going to need it.”
Cullie Landers didn’t have a family. He was alone in the world and that suited him just fine. He tended to think of himself as a man without a care in the world, and most of the time he was right. His parents had left him a fortune when they died, and he’d been wise in how he spent it. The house was bought and paid for, the cars in the driveway all belonged to him and he was cautious about going crazy with the spending. He didn’t live beyond his means and with a little careful financial maneuvering he’d managed to set most of his assets aside and still give himself a spending allowance of almost three thousand dollars a month. When it came to living on Easy Street, Cullie was an old pro.
When it came to having a good time, he was even more of a seasoned veteran. So it wouldn’t have surprised anyone who knew him to hear that he staggered into his house at just after two in the morning, wise enough at least to have taken a cab home. He could always pick up his Bronco in the morning.
Cullie opened the door and stumbled through the threshold as the room did a small spin to the left. He reached back to close the door and encountered a very warm fur coat instead.
He turned back with unfocused eyes and looked at the thickly muscled torso he was touching, felt the flesh move as the thing standing in his doorway breathed, and then looked up at the face.
He meant to scream “bear!” but never had the chance. The fist that clocked him was as big as his face, and drove him to his knees. He was unconscious when he was lifted from the ground and carried out into the cold night air.
Captain Eric Fulford was not happy. He was, in fact, absolutely miserable. The diner in front of him looked perfectly comfortable, but he sat in his car anyway, smoking a Pall Mall and trying to keep calm.
Four days earlier his wife Sarah’s car had been found abandoned on the side of the road. Foul play was suspected. Two days later, he was home on emergency leave, trying to figure out exactly what had happened to Sarah and the boys. Lance and Tyler were good kids, but too young to do much if something had happened. He took out the last picture taken of the whole family together and stared at each of his loved ones’ faces, memorizing them.
The phone call had come just after two in the morning, and he’d answered it quickly, praying it was Sarah. No, instead it was a stranger’s voice.
“Captain, we have Sarah and your twins. Lovely boys they are, too. They’re all fine and they miss you horribly.”
“Who is this?”
“Don’t concern yourself with that. Right now what you need to worry about is getting your family back. So here’s the deal. I want you to go to the Wilmont Diner on White Horse Pike, do you remember the place?”
How could he ever forget? “Yes, yes I do.”
“Excellent. I want you to meet me in there at seven pm on Friday night. The place will be crowded, but I’ve arranged for a very large table. You’ll find several of your hunting buddies waiting for you there. Like you, they have family members to consider. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” His heart felt like it was going to explode, but he made himself as calm as he could manage.
“Do I have to explain what happens if you’re late? Or if you bring reinforcements with you? I know what you do for a living. I know you’ve been out of country, dealing with a few problems in the Middle East, and I have to be honest here, I’m sorry it’s had to come to this.”
“I won’t be bringing anyone with me.”
“Excellent.” The voice was pleasant enough, but there was a sarcastic tone that grated on his nerves. “We all want this resolved, Captain. One serviceman to another, I hope we can bring about a painless resolution to the problem at hand.”
“What is this all about?”
“Murder, Captain. It’s about the people you and your friends murdered.”
The phone cut off before he could respond.
He’d had to drive most of the last day to get here, but he’d managed it, juiced on more coffee than he ever thought it possible for one man to drink and enough roadside burgers to feed his full battalion.
Now the only problem was getting motivated enough to leave the relative safety of his car. The diner was a brick affair, with chrome around the widows and doors and enough neon to light up a city block in Las Vegas. He could see through the windows, and he knew several of the men sitting at three tables that had been put together. Of course he knew them; they were his buds from all the way back in high school and, in a couple of cases, even earlier.
He saw Mark and Scott and Cullie and George. The only person who wasn’t there yet besides himself was Tony, and Tony hadn’t been with them when everything went down.