Parting Shot

Sixty-one

Cory Calder, on the floor, blinking blood out of his eyes, looked up at Craig Pierce and said, “Where’s the girl?”

“What girl?” Pierce said.

Cory put a hand to his temple, felt blood, then moved it to his neck. The pain was excruciating.

“You were too clever by half,” Pierce said.

“I don’t... I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you want to know how I found you?” Pierce offered him half a smile with his grotesque, partially eaten face. “It was actually so fucking easy.”

“I... I...”

“It was revenge. Revenge with a J. Your clever little signature on the Just Deserts posting. I mean, you can’t spell worth a shit, but that was deliberate, right? Thing is, if the only place you’d ever used it was on that site, you’d have been fine. But I did a search, found you’d used it on other sites. With your real name attached. Looked you up, found you lived right in my own backyard.”

“Please, you’ve made a mistake.”

“Drove by your house, kept watch on you, stuck a little tracker to your van. You’ve been hunting that Pilford kid, haven’t you? He was next on your list.”

“I need a doctor,” Cory said, starting to cry. “Please, please get me some help.”

Craig clucked his tongue sympathetically. “Is it all hurty?”

“Everything... It all went wrong,” Cory said, a bloody tear running down his cheek. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”

“Ahh, who’s the big baby now?” Pierce asked, wrapping both hands around the poker and driving it straight down, like a spear, through Cory Calder’s heart.