Dead Men's Dust by Matt Hilton Read Free Book Online

consultancy changed into clients who demanded more. Occasionally I had to crack skulls and bloody noses. For fourteen years I’d met violence head-on with even more violence, and now it seemed that for all my good intentions, nothing had changed.
    In another world I could’ve ended up as a hit man like thoseI’d waged war against, or as muscle for some lowlife gangster. Only because I had morals and—yes—compassion could I find any peace at all. Without my sense of decency, I’d be nothing more than a bigger thug amid all the little thugs.
    I promised Jennifer I’d find my brother.
    Nothing was going to stand in my way.

9
    YESTERDAY MORNING, TUBAL CAIN’S RAGE HAD BEEN EPIC. Little wonder. First, he’d lost his SUV, stranding him out on the highway like road kill left to dry in the increasing heat. Then, he’d realized that the unscrupulous bastard who had abandoned him had also stolen his second-favorite knife. Next, he’d discovered that his penny loafers were no good for walking any distance.
    But as the saying goes, that was then and this is now. Almost twenty-four hours later, Cain was feeling rather pleased with himself.
    For one, he was lying on a soft bed, wiggling his hot feet in the draft from a wall-mounted AC unit. Freshly showered and wearing clothes that weren’t sticky with perspiration, he was a new man. Beside him on the bed was the quiet, still form of the Good Samaritan who’d brought him to this place.
    She was dead, of course, not sleeping peacefully as her pose would suggest. Her hair was spread across the pillows like a sheaf of spilled corn, hiding her slack features. Deliberate posing so that her unnatural pallor wouldn’t give the game away.
    “Now, I’d appreciate it if you’d just lie there like a good girl,” hesaid. “Like you’re sleeping off the effects of a heavy party. It was a good party, believe me, and you certainly deserve a nap.”
    Cain prided himself on his expertise at covering his tracks. That was why he remained America’s most prolific undetected serial murderer. Take George and Mabel, for instance: He’d rigged the explosion so that both of them would be so charred it would take a determined investigator to guess that they’d been murdered. Essentially, Mabel hadn’t been too careful with the gas cooker when preparing their supper. Either the explosion or the subsequent fire would cover the fact that George was missing a couple of digits, while his wife had suffered numerous breaks to her limbs.
    Here, though, it needn’t be as dramatic as flames and carcass-ripping devastation. Subtlety was the order of the day. He’d cranked up the AC so that the growing stink wouldn’t alert anyone too soon. And he’d tucked the comforter up to the woman’s chin. That would help dissuade the blowflies from searching out the decaying matter as nurseries for their brood. By the time the proliferation of insect life made the room unbearable, he’d be many miles away.
    The comforter served a threefold purpose. It absorbed the blood leaking from her body and would take a lot more before it showed. It also concealed the missing digits from her right hand. Ideally, Cain would’ve preferred to deliver her entire corpse to his repository in Jubal’s Hollow; there were some nicely shaped bones under that alabaster skin of hers. For now, he had neither the time nor the inclination for further diversion. The fingers stripped from her hand would have to do. They were easily concealed in the pocket of his jacket, easily transported, and could be dropped off next time he visited his secret place.
    It was like preparing for a school picnic. He’d wrapped the fingers in cellophane, packed like snack-sized hotdogs, and secreted them alongside the plastic bag holding George’s thumbs. When he had time, he’d strip the flesh away and keep only the bones. He preferred them that way. Without the associated baggage of rotting meat. For now, hecould content himself with fingering