Denouement Read Free Page A

back.
    Hodges pulled down the street toward us. He stopped next to our car and dropped his passenger window. “Is that him?”
    “Yeah,” I said.
    “Remember, no calls and no contact with the outside of any kind,” Hodges said.
    I got in our car without responding, and we drove back toward the station.

Chapter 3
    Ray’s car was parked in the grass on the shoulder of a road, just beyond a stop sign half a block down from a 1920s bungalow. He sat inside, the motor running, the air conditioning turned on high. Ray brought binoculars to his eyes and watched the front door of the house.
    “Come on,” Ray said.
    He dropped the binoculars to his lap and checked the time on his Rolex—a couple minutes past nine in the morning.
    Ray waited. He looked into the rearview mirror, catching his reflection. Pink skin covered one side of his face. Ray swatted at the mirror and bent it toward the roof of the car.
    Another ten minutes passed before he saw a little girl prancing from the front of the house toward the minivan parked in the long skinny driveway running alongside the home. Ray brought the binoculars back to his eyes. A brunette in her thirties followed a few steps behind the girl. Ray looked toward the front door. Don Brumfeld stood in the doorway, his long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, tattoos on his hands. He wore a bathrobe and held a cup of coffee, seeing his family off.
    Ray shook his head. “Say goodbye for the last time, asshole. If you only knew what was about to happen,” he said.
    He continued watching the woman load the girl into a child seat in the back, buckle her up, and take her place behind the wheel. Ray focused the binoculars back on the front door. Brumfeld gave them a wave and walked back into the house. The front door closed. The car pulled from the driveway and drove the opposite direction up the street.
    Ray tossed the binoculars on the passenger seat of his dark four-door Toyota sedan. Ray grabbed the baseball hat from the dash and snugged it down on his head. He reached over to the glove box, grabbed the pair of brass knuckles, and dropped them into the front pockets of his suit jacket. Ray reached inside his jacket for the gold-plated Desert Eagle in his shoulder holster and thumbed the safety off. He pulled the handle on the car door and stepped out. Ray walked along the grass, through the intersection and past the empty lot next to Brumfeld’s house. He glanced left, right, and up the street, looking for any neighbors. The block was free of anyone outside.
    Ray made his way up the driveway. Brumfeld’s home was a light shade of yellow with a small porch at the front. Ray glanced down at the flower gardens sitting to the left and right of the L-shaped red-brick sidewalk leading up to the door. He dug his hands into his pockets and slid his fingers into the holes of the brass knuckles. Ray climbed the two stairs up the porch and reached out for the burgundy front door’s knob. He twisted it, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
    “What the hell are you doing in my house!” Brumfeld shouted.
    Ray closed the door at his back. His eyes lifted to meet Brumfeld’s, staring at him from the kitchen.
    “Oh shit!” Brumfeld said. He dropped the coffee he held and scrambled around the kitchen island.
    Ray took five lunging steps through the living room toward Brumfeld and caught him just as he was turning the corner of the hallway. Ray grabbed him by the back of the bathrobe with his left hand and delivered a looping right fist to the back of Brumfeld’s head. Brumfeld fell to the floor.
    Ray reached down, turned him over, and delivered another brass-wrapped right fist between Brumfeld’s eyes. The strike rendered Brumfeld unconscious and opened a gaping wound across his face. Ray cracked his neck to one side, grabbed Brumfeld by the arm, and dragged him back to the kitchen. He let the brass knuckles fall from his hands onto the kitchen table.
    Ray rummaged the kitchen drawers. He