Blood Abandon (Donald Holley Book 1) Read Free

was Damon. Damon hadn’t answered the call when we had Tee call him, so he gave us the address. I had figured the odds were good Damon had skipped town after getting his share of the money, but Bit hadn’t received any money, and Derrick said he hadn’t distributed any. If a man were going to risk everything for some cash, he probably wouldn’t leave without his share even if it was stupid to stick around.
    We arrived at Damon’s house, a single story brick bungalow on Mangum. I parked on the street, and Bit and I each tucked our weapons inside of our coats. Mine was a SIG Sauer P220 handgun with a custom silencer; Bit carried a Glock 37 pistol, which was a .45 caliber firearm. I surveyed the house before we walked up; everything seemed quiet; too quiet. There were no cars in the driveway, and the yard was past-due for a mowing. The darkened orange-red brick looked old and dirt-smudged, and the porch had chairs scattered about haphazardly. Bit and I looked at each other, and I motioned for him to follow behind me.
    Once on the porch, I realized we weren’t the first people to visit Damon. Partially obscured by the metal storm door, I noticed the door jamb was split, and the door itself was damaged, but had been pulled closed. I opened the storm door, looked around, drew my weapon, and pushed the door open slowly. I hoped it would make noise, and the door hinges did not disappoint. If there were someone in the home now, they were aware we were there, also.
    I fanned through the house, Bit behind me covering, going room to room, but there was no sign of Damon, or anyone else. We went out on the back deck, looked at the yard, and again saw nothing. If not for the door, it would have seemed that nothing was amiss.
    “What do you think?” Bit whispered.
    I exhaled quietly. “He’s dead, or someone has him.”
    “Shit,” Bit said. “This is bad.”
    I looked at my kid brother for a minute, and didn’t say anything; I just nodded lightly. There wasn’t much to say. He was correct, this was a bad situation. I tried to wrap my head around how he could have been so stupid, but taking it out on him now was pointless. Bit needed my help, and turning my anger and sarcasm on him wouldn’t make me feel better. I turned and went back in the house. As we passed into the kitchen, I caught something on the floor out of the corner of my eye. I had almost missed it; a speck on the floor, a small dark spatter. I kneeled down, pulled a set of rubber gloves from my coat pocket and put them on.
    “Put your gloves on and find me a knife,” I told Bit.
    He put his on, and rifled through the kitchen drawers for a moment until he found one and handed it to me. I scraped at the spot with the knife, and after a few swipes a flake came off of the linoleum onto the blade. I put it to my nose and smelled it.
    Blood.
    Bit looked at me, and I just nodded.
    “There’s more over there in front of the fridge,” he said. He walked over to the refrigerator, looked back at me, and I motioned for him to open it. He stepped back, and put his forearm over his mouth. “Oh man,” he stammered. “Oh, no.”
    The inside of the refrigerator was filled with Damon’s dismembered body parts. Both arms, his hands and feet, torso and separated legs were wrapped in plastic and put on the shelving. It was all done very neatly; there was very little spatter or fluid in the wrappings. I stood up, walked over and looked at it closely. This wasn’t the way a street gang would do it; this was something different.
    “Where’s his head?” asked Bit.
    I opened the freezer. “In here,” I said.
    I was preparing to shut the freezer door when I noticed a piece of paper folded up next to the head. I pulled it out and flipped it open, reading it silently.
    “What does it say?”
    I looked at Bit, then back at the paper. “It’s a list of the five of your crew’s names, with Damon’s marked through,” I said. “And at the bottom, there’s a phone