Blood and Ashes by Matt Hilton Read Free Book Online

made Vince wonder if maybe he should reconsider. The man had a similar look to the one he’d recognised in Sonya’s eyes that first time in Greenwich Village. It was the same look he knew that he carried. They all had what Vince’s grandpa called ‘Cain’s eyes’ – the eyes of a killer.
    Yeah, but what did Grandpa Everett know? Vince’s grandfather hadn’t recognised the killer eyes of the kid who shot him through the throat with a .22 revolver when he’d discovered him trying to boost the cash from the till in his store.
    Or maybe he had, but the shock of seeing them in his own grandson’s face had thrown him off.
    Vince shrugged. Who gives a fuck anyway? If the guy comes back, Sonya will warn me. If he wants to get it on, then so be it. He’d kill the guy and see how hot for it that made Sonya.
    Feeling the stirrings of an erection, Vince smiled to himself. Then he dipped a hand into the hip pocket of his jeans. He couldn’t play guitar like the King, but he always carried a spare string.
    The ‘G’ string – Sonya always laughed at that, usually lifting the hem of her skirt to show him hers – had never been on a guitar and likely never would be. He’d taken the two ends and fastened them to large steel washers. The weighted ends made it easy for snaring round a throat, then gave him good handles while he throttled his victim. The string was a medium gauge, with a nylon filament and sheathed in a wound brass coil: tough enough not to break and not too slim that it cut deeply. Vince wanted his victims aware while he strangled them to death.

Chapter 7
    A little under a year ago, I’d launched an assault with my friend Rink on a derelict building in Little Rock, Arkansas. We’d been searching for my brother, John, who’d been in the employ of the men inside. Though we’d both expected to be met with violence, I’d cautioned against the use of lethal force. The men inside were little more than low-end criminals and, without knowledge of John’s fate, I couldn’t reconcile myself to the thought of murder. Even when the guns started blasting, I’d reined in my instincts and hadn’t aimed to kill.
    So what’s happened here?
    I held back the blanket so that Don could look at the two dead men. I avoided looking at their purpling faces and their staring, accusatory eyes.
    I concentrated instead on Don’s reaction to their identity. Please tell me that you don’t recognise them, I prayed.
    My worst fear was that the two men were merely local punks, who, misreading my arrival in town, thought I was someone looking into their criminal activities. Maybe they were dealing dope or had an illegal cook shop hidden out in the hills and they thought I was there to upset their enterprise or even take their customers away from them.
    ‘I don’t know them.’
    There was relief at Don’s words but only for the space of a heartbeat.
    ‘You’re sure? Take another look.’
    ‘I don’t need another look. I’ve lived here in Bedford Well for years and know every deadbeat out there. They’re not from round here, Hunter.’
    This second wave of relief was tinged with the realisation that Don’s original suspicion was probably right. Someone had sent these men to watch Don’s house and to dissuade anyone from lingering there very long. It went some way to justifying my actions, but also it would be likely that more men were coming. And that could mean I might have to kill them too.
    ‘How’d you do it, Hunter?’
    I allowed the blanket to drop back in place. The smell coming off the corpses wafted out of the interior of the SUV, and we moved away hurriedly. When I didn’t immediately reply, Don added, ‘I didn’t see any bullet holes. How’d you take them out?’
    In the worst way imaginable.
    ‘Does it matter?’
    Don shook his head. Then he planted his fists on his hips and looked around. The forest encroached on all sides, and an outcropping of limestone jutted across the trail, hiding the SUV from