TWENTY-EIGHT
Even though it was still light out, Angela went right to bed. She was relieved to finally take off the baggy jeans and shirt from the hospital lost and found, but more than that it was a relief to be in her own bed and to at last be completely alone.
Before climbing into bed, she resisted the temptation to look at herself in the mirror.
Several mornings later, when she finally did look in the mirror, it was worse than she had hoped, but it wasn’t as bad as she had feared. The bruises had lost their sick-looking deep violet color, but now they were an ugly dark yellowish black. The stitches inside her cheeks were a continual annoyance, but they would dissolve as the wounds healed. She was thankful that they hadn’t gone all the way through her cheeks and that she wouldn’t have scars across the outside of her face. It was going to be a while, though, before she was in shape to tend bar.
After she got dressed and made herself some soup, she went down into the basement. The quiet of the basement was different from the quiet of the house. The basement was deathly quiet. She thought about the killers she had put down the hell hole, and promised herself they would not be the last.
Angela retrieved another knife from the cabinet and fit its sheath into the pocket in the lining of a new pair of boots that hadn’t been covered in blood. She had never known that it was illegal to carry the knife. She had carried the knife because she knew it was illegal to carry a gun. She thought she was taking on an extra risk by carrying a knife instead of a gun in order to stay legal.
Since it was illegal to carry the knife, too, that changed everything.
Angela went back to the cabinet where the supplies were stored and retrieved her grandfather’s inside-the-waistband leather holster for the Walther P22. She tried the gun in it. It fit like a glove. But that wasn’t exactly what she needed.
Angela put the leather holster on the counter and used a utility knife to cut off the bottom end of the barrel pocket to make an opening. She screwed on a suppressor and tried putting the gun into the holster. She had to cut away some extra leather until the suppressor fit down through the hole and the gun sat snug in the holster.
She undid the button and zipper on her jeans and fit the holster to the inside of the waistband in back. It would stick out and be too visible if she wore it on her hip. Wearing it in the back she could wear a top to help conceal it.
The suppressor made for a long weapon, but she found that with the barrel of the suppressor resting partway down into the crack of her ass, the gun was well concealed.
She often wore a short top that showed her midriff when she tended bar. She decided that her cutoffs revealed enough to keep men buying drinks and leaving tips without needing a cropped top as well. A longer top would allow her to carry the gun with the suppressor already attached.
Ever since she had killed that first man, who had murdered the girl with red hair and dumped her body in an old cistern in the deserted industrial tract, she knew she had found her calling in life. It seemed like the more men she killed, the more she wanted to kill. It was addicting.
Fortunately, she seemed to be a lunatic magnet. Killers were drawn to her like wolves to a lamb.
Angela figured that if she was breaking the law carrying the knife, then she might as well carry a gun. Better to break the law than to be murdered. The next time she wouldn’t have to worry about it being out of reach in her truck.
Even if she did have a gun on her, she was concerned by how fast those men had gotten control of her. She wasn’t sure that even if she had been carrying a gun she would have been able to get it out fast enough. She wasn’t sure yet what she was going to do about that problem. There seemed to be a piece to the puzzle missing.
Satisfied with the way the holster fit, Angela collected a few boxes of ammunition and went out to practice. Having the gun holstered at the small of her back added a challenging new dimension to shooting. She would have to get used to drawing it quickly, even with the suppressor attached. That was not going to be easy. It was a trade-off of speed for stealth.
First, she needed to master drawing it quickly and then getting off rounds accurately. It didn’t matter how fast you could shoot if you missed the target. Her grandfather often told her that you couldn’t miss fast enough to save your life.
She soon became good at drawing the gun from a concealed position and getting off the first round with dead accuracy. Once she could draw and every round pinged the steel triangle, her confidence grew that having the gun concealed on her would be worthwhile.
Her abdomen was finally feeling better and the bruises were healing. When she went for a checkup, Dr. Song was pleased with her progress. The stitches inside her cheeks were beginning to dissolve, too.
Confident she could cover the remaining bruises with makeup, she felt good about going back to work for Barry. To celebrate being alive and going back to work, she dyed her hair a stark platinum blond with blue tips. Her hair and her cutoffs showing off her legs always brought in good tips. For all she knew, maybe the tattoo across her throat did as well.
Since she was carrying her gun in the waistband at the small of her back, she had to wear a longer top to cover it. Because the suppressor made it hard to wear her gun when driving, she decided that for now she would carry the suppressor separately. With no pockets big enough to hide a suppressor, she put it down the inside of her left boot, much the way she did with her knife in the right boot. It wasn’t too comfortable, but it worked well enough for the time being.
While she was concerned that it was illegal to carry the gun and knife, and doubly illegal to have a suppressor, she was far more realistically concerned about suddenly finding herself looking into the eyes of a killer. That happened far more often than she had ever encountered the police.
At least with the four men who tried to kill her in jail, she wouldn’t have to worry about encountering them.
Pleased that she was going to be well armed, and just as she was about to leave to bartend, she got a call.
She pulled out her phone as she was heading for the front door, keys in hand. “Hello, this is Angela.”
“Hi, Miss Constantine. It’s Detective Vaughan.”
Angela used her shoulder to hold her phone to her ear as she locked the front door. “Have they set a trial date?”
The detective cleared his throat. “I hate having to give you this news, but the charges were dropped and all four of the men were released.”
Angela straightened, keys in hand. For a moment, she couldn’t seem to form a thought.
“I don’t understand. Why would they be released?”
“I’m afraid it was the prosecutor’s decision.”
At first, Angela felt like she might faint. It took only seconds, though, for rage to take over.
“But I identified them. I said I would testify. You have the DNA evidence they collected at the hospital. It’s all in the rape kit.”
“Rape kits from all over the state are backlogged for years. There’s not enough funding to process them. It will be at least three years, more likely four or maybe even five years, before they can get to yours for processing and DNA analysis.”
“But I’m willing to testify. They have the rope. My blood was at the location. There’s a hospital report of what they did to me. None of that has to be processed.”
“Look, Miss Constantine, I’m on your side. I’m angry about this, too.”
“Oh yeah? Did those bastards rape you? Did they put a fucking rope around your neck, hang you from a beam, and leave you to strangle to death?”
The line was silent for a moment.
“Of course not. I realize there is no way I could feel the way you do. I’m just saying that I’m on your side. I wanted those four assholes to go to prison. I was pretty angry when I heard that they’d been released.”
“Who ordered them released?”
“John Babington, the assistant district attorney.”
In her courier job delivering legal documents, Angela had met John Babington a few times. He was a prick.
“Can’t you—”
“There is nothing I can do about it. It’s over my head. The reason for my call is to inform you, but more importantly I wanted to warn you. Those four are out of jail and since they had intended to kill you, it’s possible they could decide to finish the job. I asked if we could provide protection, but since there is no specific threat, the chief said we don’t have the manpower.”
Angela scanned the surrounding woods.
They could be anywhere.
“Do you have any idea if they left town?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t. If I get any word on their whereabouts or if they left town, I will certainly let you know right away.”
“All right, thanks,” Angela finally said.
Her thoughts were already elsewhere, already on that pompous prick, John Babington.
One time in the hall of the Municipal Building, when no one else was around, John Babington had put his hand on her ass. It wasn’t tentative or fleeting. It was deliberate and forceful. In the same way she handled drunks in the bar, she simply glided out of range without making an issue of it as she handed him the documents she was delivering for one of her attorney clients. He had flashed her a smile that was both lewd and condescending at the same time.
Instead of going into work at the bar, Angela called Barry and told him she would be a little late, that she had to make a stop, first.