Devil's Throat (The River Book 6)
Read Devil's Throat (The River Book 6) Online
Authors: Michael Richan
Devil’s Throat
By Michael Richan
By the author:
The River
series:
The Downwinders
series
:
The Dark River series:
All three series are part of
The
River Universe,
and there is crossover of some characters and plots. For a
suggested reading order, see the
Author’s Website
.
Copyright 2014 by Michael Richan
All Rights Reserved.
All
characters appearing in this work are fictitious.
Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is available in print at
most online retailers.
ASIN: B00JEHRS28
Published by Dantull (148415127A)
◊
For Kym, Kimberly, and Carol
“You can’t imagine how horrible it is
to have a child betray you.”
— Anita Unser
“Is Jennifer here?” Steven asked the young man who opened the
door. He had shoulder length dreadlocks and looked stoned out of his mind.
Steven wasn’t sure he’d heard the question. “I’m Jason’s dad.”
“Oh,” he said after a moment, thinking about it. His eyes hadn’t
yet made contact with Steven. “Come in.”
Steven and Roy stepped into the entry hall of the large
Victorian mansion on 34th Street. “Hold on,” the dreadlocked young man said as
he walked up the staircase and disappeared. Then they heard him yelling for
Jennifer.
Steven looked into the front living room. Every 7-11
container and wrapper imaginable was lying crumpled on the floor. Some of it
looked and smelled as though it had been around for a long time. He could see
the remnants of a nacho tray, the leftover bright orange nacho cheese having
long ago solidified into a dark brown puddle with little green jalapeno
islands. Next to the nacho tray was a foot-wide path, one of several rabbit
trails that led in and through the wrapper piles.
“Kids,” Roy said, shaking his head.
“The freedom to not have to pick up after yourself,” Steven
said.
“The freedom to live like a goddamn pig!” Roy said.
The young man reappeared at the top landing and descended.
His dreadlocks bounced as he came down the stairs. “She’s coming,” he said, and
twisted around the banister in a smooth motion, walking away from them into a
back room.
“I’m sure he would have offered us a place to sit,” Roy said
sarcastically, “if there was one.”
Jennifer came down the stairs. She was short and thin, with
shoulder length blonde hair. Her features were classic.
No surprises here,
Steven thought.
Jason knows how to pick them
.
“Hi?” she said. “So, you’re like, Jason’s dad?” Her voice was
a little airy, and on the edge of whiney.
“Yes,” Steven said, extending his hand. “And this is my
father, Jason’s grandfather, Roy.”
“Nice to meet you,” Roy said.
“Jason’s, like, not here right now,” Jennifer said.
“Yes, I know,” Steven said. “He left me a message saying he
was going out of town. The reason I wanted to meet you, aside from just getting
to know you and saying hello, was to ask if you knew where he went.”
“Nevada, I think,” she said, looking between Steven and Roy.
“Any idea where in Nevada?” Steven asked.
“Some town, I forget the name,” she said. “Like, none of the
big towns. Not Las Vegas.”
“Have you talked to him since he left?” Steven asked.
“Last night,” she said. “He was, like, in Oregon. Is
something wrong?”
“There might be,” Steven said. “I need to reach him, and he’s
not answering his cell phone.”
“He said he was like going somewhere where there might be like
bad reception,” she said, flipping her hair back on one side.
She is pretty,
Steven thought.
Every girlfriend Jason has had was pretty. Nothing yet
that tells me she’s smart, though.
“Are you expecting him to call you again today?” Steven
asked.
“I hope so,” Jennifer said. “If he can, like, find
reception.”
“If you talk to him, would you do me a favor?” Steven said.
“Sure, what?” She flipped her hair back again, on the same
side.
“Tell him that it’s very important that he call me on my cell
phone, as soon as he can,” Steven said. “Can I give you my number, just in case
he needs it?”
“Alright,” she said, pulling her phone from her pocket. She
tapped a few keys and said, “Go ahead.”
Steven read her his number, and she typed it in, reading it
back to him. “And would you call me, right after he calls you?” Steven asked.
“So I know he’s gotten through.”
“OK,” she said, “I’ll call you.”
“Do you know who he went with?” Roy asked.
“That creep Michael,” she said, “from next door.”
“So you’ve met him,” Roy said.
“You know him?” Jennifer asked. “I’m sorry, but he’s just,
like, creepy.”
“What makes you say that?” Roy asked.
“He was always coming over, pestering Jason,” Jennifer said.
“I figured he was like gay or something. Jason seemed to like him, always asked
him over. I don’t know, he just, like, gave me the creeps. He was way too
interested in my boyfriend.”
“Do you know,” Roy asked, “if the trip was Michael’s idea?”
“Totally,” she said. “At first Jason wasn’t going to go. I
was like, ‘you’ve only known Michael for a couple of days’. But then something
changed, and Jason was like, ‘I
have
to go.’ Nothing I said mattered. He
wouldn’t really tell me why. He said he’d be back in like a week.”
“Alright,” Steven said. “We’ll let you go. Thanks for helping
me reach him, if he calls. It’s very, very important.”
“Sure,” she said. Steven and Roy turned and walked to the
door, letting themselves out. Jennifer shut the door behind them.
“Do you think Michael knew Jason was my son?” Steven asked
Roy, standing on the front porch of the house.
“Either that, or he picked up on Jason’s gift,” Roy said.
“Doesn’t matter either way, he knows Jason’s your son now.”
“I knew we should have killed this guy,” Steven said, walking
to his car. “I let you talk me out of it.”
“Let’s not leave just yet,” Roy said. “I’d like to do a
little browsing around.”
“What, Michael’s place next door?” Steven asked.
“Exactly,” Roy said. “He’s gone. We might find something there
that would tell us where they’re going.”
Steven followed Roy as he walked next door to Michael’s
residence. They’d been in Michael’s house a couple of times the year before,
when they were trying to locate a man named Lukas Johansen, the former owner of
the Victorian now housing the students. Michael had been working with Lukas at
the time, a conspirator in Lukas’ crimes. Steven and Roy had taken care of
Lukas, but they decided to ignore Michael, since Lukas seemed the one with the
power. Steven didn’t like the idea of ignoring Michael, but he let Roy convince
him that Michael wasn’t a threat. He was regretting it now.
Roy walked behind the house to the back yard, where they’d
first met Michael. The same lawn furniture was there. Roy walked up to a
sliding glass French door and peered inside.
“I don’t see any movement,” Roy said.
“How do you want to break in?” Steven asked.
“Let me check the rest of the house,” Roy said, leaving and
walking around the far side of the building. Steven stepped up to the glass
doors and cupped his hands around his eyes so he could eliminate the glare of
the sun. He was looking into a kitchen.
Roy returned. “There’s a basement window, but it’s too
small,” he said. “I think the easiest way would be to smash a bedroom window on
the far side. It’s protected from the neighbor’s view. I don’t think there’s an
alarm.”
Steven followed Roy around the house to the far side, where
Roy pointed out the window he’d selected. He held his elbow up to the window
and tapped at it until it cracked, then he tapped at it again until a couple of
pieces fell out. He carefully removed the remaining pieces.
“I’ll do it,” Steven said. “And I’ll come around and let you
in the sliding glass doors.”
“Alright,” Roy said, bending down to give Steven a boost.
Steven landed on a bed. He rolled off and looked around the
room.
Michael’s bedroom,
he thought. It looked normal, all the regular male bedroom
items. There was an adjoining bathroom. Steven stepped out of the bedroom and
into a hallway. In a moment he’d made his way to the kitchen and opened the
door for Roy.
“Where should we start?” Steven asked, looking around.
“Let’s take it a room at a time,” Roy said, walking into the
living room. “Look through everything.”
They checked every inch of the room, lifting cushions and
flipping through magazines. Then they moved to the next room and continued searching.
They opened every drawer and cabinet. Eventually they reached a second bedroom that
looked like an office. Steven searched the desk and filing cabinets thoroughly.
“Nothing so far,” Steven told Roy. “You?”
“Nope,” Roy said. “Me either.”
The search ended when they came to the last door, locked with
a dead bolt. “The basement, I’d guess,” Roy said. “Who knows what he might
have down there.”
“Are we going to bust it down?” Steven asked.
“Oh, I think so,” Roy said. “Let me see what he has in the
shed in the back.”
Roy left the house through the sliding glass doors in the
kitchen and returned with a Sawzall. “We’ll cut through the door!” he said,
smiling. In a few minutes, Roy had cut a hand sized hole in the door near the
dead bolt. He reached inside and found the handle. The door popped open.
“He’ll be surprised when he comes home,” Steven said.
“He knows we’ll break in,” Roy said. “I don’t think he’ll be
surprised.”
Roy found a light switch on the wall of the stairwell and
turned it on. They heard fluorescent lights popping to life below.
“You first,” Steven said. “I’ll follow.”
Roy stepped onto the bare wooden steps of the basement
stairway and began to descend. At the bottom was a large open room. The floor
was bare cement. Steven could see a sump pump in a corner next to a washer and
dryer. There were boxes stacked on pallets to keep the cardboard from coming in
contact with the cement on the floor. In the back was another door. Roy tried
the handle – it was locked.
“I’ll get the saw,” Steven said, turning to go back upstairs.
“Wait,” Roy said. “I don’t think there’s a deadbolt on this
one. Let me try to kick it in.”
“Why don’t I try instead of you?” Steven said. “You’ll throw
your back out and then we’ll be up shit creek.”
“Your old man still has some strength, you know,” Roy said, smiling
and raising his foot. He brought it forward against the door with force, and
the door flew open with pieces of wood from the doorframe splintering into the room.
“That felt good!” Roy said, taking a deep breath and smiling.
“I think I’ll kick in a door every day, just to stay healthy.”
Steven stepped into the open room and found a light switch on
the wall. The room was filled with wooden shelves, lined with objects. Most
were inside glass jars.
“Looks like Michael’s got his own collection going,” Roy
said, examining the objects. “Look here!” He pointed to a glass jar at eye
level. Steven stepped over to Roy and checked it out – it contained a small
planchette, similar to the one he’d seen Judith use. It was resting on a bed of
cedar shavings.
“No engravings on it,” Steven said. “Looks a lot like
Judith’s.”
“Christ!” Roy said, having moved on to another jar. It looked
like a baby’s head inside, suspended in a light brown liquid. “Please tell me
that’s not real.”
“It’s not,” Steven said, examining the jar. “It’s a doll’s
head. Why it’s in liquid I don’t know.”
“We know he was involved with Lukas’ child murders,” Roy
said. “He’s certainly smart enough to not keep something around that would
incriminate him.”
Steven removed the jar from the shelf and opened it. “Doesn’t
smell,” he said, reaching inside the jar.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Roy said, but Steven had
already grabbed the doll head and was pulling it from the jar. Steven was
startled when the doll head revolved in his hand and opened its mouth.
“Ow!” he yelped, dropping the doll head on the floor and
setting the jar back on the shelf. “It bit me!”
“I told you,” Roy said, moving on to look at other parts of
the room.
Steven reached down for the doll head, but it rolled out of
sight under a set of shelves. He got down on his hands and knees, looking for
where it had gone. The doll’s head was there, under the bottom shelf, watching
him. Its mouth wrinkled when it saw him, and Steven noticed a row of sharp
white teeth. Then it hissed at him.
I’m not reaching under there to get it,
he thought.
It can stay there for all I care.
“We’ve got to hurry this up,” Steven said, returning to his
feet. “Jason is getting further and further away.”
“For all we know, they’ve reached their destination by now,”
Roy said. “I’m not seeing much in this room that would tell us where they’ve
gone.”
Steven looked over the jars and instruments that were out on
a counter against a wall.
Michael’s workbench,
Steven thought. There was
a piece of paper, tri-folded into a brochure, sitting under one of the jars.
Steven lifted the jar and picked up the brochure. It was water stained as
though it had been used as a coaster. He opened it and read.
“It’s too bad we don’t have access to government systems,”
Roy said, poking through the jars on the shelves. “You could track Jason’s cell
phone.”