Page 34 of Dangerous Silence
My heart caught in my chest. What was he doingnow? Especially now that he was making me wait in the car.
He went down the street, hopping a fence, disappearing into a backyard. And it was then that I knew as screwed up as it may have been, even if it was for my own safety, I didn’t want Axe to die. I was worried about him. I closed and opened my fists repeatedly, trying to release the tension.
About ten minutes later, having almost bitten off my nails, he finally reemerged from a different part of the street. He slid into the driver’s seat, closing the door behind him.
“So what’d you do?” I asked.
“Secured some persuasion.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it seemed inappropriate to ask. After we left the neighborhood, Axe drove us to the other side of town. We pulled into a business park. A squat, three-story building with white walls and a pink rooftop was our destination.Harris & Hall Law Practicewas written on a sign outside of the door. I swallowed the lump in my throat. He was going after a lawyer?
Axe called someone, whispered to them. Then he hung up.
“Cameras are out,” he explained.
Well, that was good. I guess. “Am I staying here this time?” I asked.
He motioned toward the building. “Let’s go.”
Axe bent his neck to pick the locks, and I kept my eyes up at the moonless night, counting the few stars I could see. Breaking and entering was the smallest crime that I had witnessed that night, but still, I didn’t want to look. It felt like an admission.
The building was dark, but the windows along the entrance lit the empty lobby. We took the stairs to the third floor, following it down the corridor and through the main shaft of the building to where a single office was lit, glowing like the last coals of a fire. A couple laughed, then the woman moaned. These people weren’t working late.
Axe motioned for me to stay by the wall. He removed his gun, pulled back the hammer, then turned the corner.
“Harris,” he said.
A man with black hair and a woman with an unbuttoned shirt startled. The woman screamed. The man flung her off of his lap.
“What the hell?” She pulled her shirt shut over her chest.
“Whoa, buddy,” the man, I’m assuming Harris, said. “No need to bring a gun here.”
He seemed so casual, like he was convinced it was a joke.
Axe shot the woman in the face, her body falling to the floor, then he went toward the man. Sweat beaded on the man’s brow as he hid his face behind his hands.
“Holy shit. You fucking killed her, man. Do you know who I am? I can have you killed. You know I—”
Axe shoved the back of his pistol into the man’s forehead, knocking the words out of him. The man fell silent, his eyes blinking rapidly. Then Axe pulled a lock of curly brown hair from his pocket. The man’s eyes widened.
“You know what this is,” Axe said. The man froze in fear. “You know who it belongs to.” The man’s eyes shifted back and forth, and Axe lowered his voice even more: “You’re going to put your hands on the chair. You’re not going to move. And unless you want me to kill your mother, wife and child, you’re not going to make a single sound unless I ask you a question. Do you understand, Harris?”
Harris nodded, then put his hands on the chair, shaking the whole time. Axe moved methodically, each movement calculated, strapping him to the chair with zip ties, going over it with duct tape. There was a window in the back of Harris’s large office, all of the blinds drawn, casting the two of them in a dull silhouette. A set of shelves was to the side full of law books. A bright spin caught my eye:Crime and Evidence: A Modern Approach to Law. It seemed vaguely familiar, like a book from one of my college reading lists.
Once Harris was restrained, Axe stood in front of him, his shoulders straight, his chin tilted down.
A tear slipped down Harris’s cheek. I wondered who the curly hair belonged to. Was it his wife’s? His daughter’s? A son’s? Harris had seemed confident until Axe brought out the lock of hair. There was an infinite amount of intimacy in it, and invasion, showing that Axe had crossed over from the world of business into the personal, making someone close to Harris vulnerable. Did Axe hold anyone that close?
Axe’s hair was ruffled now, the styling cream from the wedding no longer holding up to the chaos. His skin had a light sheen of sweat. A hint of that metallic scent came off of him too, almost as if his body was cleaned with the metal of a gun. I couldn’t imagine Axe loving his family like Harris did. Instead, I pictured Axe being willing to diein place ofhis family.
But was that enough of a reason to justify him torturing Harris? Did it justify killing that woman who clearly wasn’t associated in any way?
No. It didn’t. So why was I still trying to understand? What did this mean to Axe?
What did Dad mean to Axe?
“You know Miles Muro,” Axe said. The man nodded. “You help him launder for his arms business. Got some lawmakers to look the other way when it came to certain business regulations, yes?”
