Page 45 of Roark
He took a second to look at her, to really see her this time. She was still pretty, her skin a soft sand complexion and those same expression-filled hazel eyes. Her hair was shorter now with no gray at all. Ronnella would’ve never allowed it to turn gray. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a movement and shifted his attention, firing the gun when he saw Tony extending his arm to the nightstand where the phone was.
Tony yelled as the bullet ripped through his shoulder, and Ronnella screamed again.
“Kaymen, no!”
His twisted mouth moved into a position he recalled as being a smile, and he chuckled. “You remember me.” Of all of them, a part of him had hoped she would.
The others hadn’t, not until he’d told them and then they’d begged and lied just as they always had.
He wasn’t going to wait for that now.
With Tony cupping his shoulder and screaming in agony, his blood dripping onto the light-colored sheets, Ronnella continued to stare and shake her head. “Kaymen.”
He hurried around to the side of the bed where she was then, still pointing the gun at Tony as he dug his free hand into his pocket and pulled out the syringe. “Lay back!” he instructed her.
Tears were rolling down her face now, and her hands were shaking. “Kaymen, please.”
“Shut up and lay back, or I’ll shoot you in your lying face right now!” For the first time, he trembled.
He’d wanted to save her for last, but he hadn’t been able to track down Tony—now he knew why. They were together, and that was just as well. A two-for-one would give him extra pleasure.
She lay back slowly, her entire body shuddering as she sobbed now. She was afraid and probably just starting to feel the icy pricks of regret. Well, good for her—she should have regrets. All of them should.
When she was down, he moved faster than he normally did, jabbing the syringe between her toes and listening as she screamed again. That noise would stop in just a few seconds, and then he’d only have to deal with Tony. Because he’d presumed Ronnella would be alone, he’d brought one syringe, but that was fine, his gun was working just fine to keep Tony still.
“You lay back too!” He directed his former roommate and walked around to stand in front of the bed. “Since you two were always fucking around behind my back, it makes sense that you both get to lay there and die together.”
“Dammit, Kaymen! Hold the hell up, man! What’re you doing?”
Kaymen leaned down and removed the top from the can of gasoline. “Shut up!” His head was throbbing now; the headaches he’d lived with for forty-five years was more intense than he’d ever felt it before. Anger boiled inside him and his hands trembled momentarily. “Shut up and lay there! Lay there and die!”
“Kaymen!”
He ignored Tony’s next call and started pouring the gasoline right there. From the second it splashed onto the carpeted floor and the scent wafted up to his nose, Kaymen went into a zone—the place where there was nothing existed but the heat, the scent of burning flesh, the sound of ferocious flames licking along the skin and tearing it away until there was only bone. The sound of screams, his this time, echoing in his mind.
He walked faster, pouring gasoline all the way around the bed. When he was on the side where Tony was holding his shoulder, the stupid motherfucker tried to lunge at him. Kaymen landed one hard punch to Tony’s jaw and when he fell back on the bed, Kaymen poured gas directly on his ex-friend’s screaming body.
When the can was empty, he searched his jacket pockets for the lighter he always carried, but it wasn’t there. He cursed as he searched again.
A whispery sound came from Ronnella and he jerked his head in her direction. She was staring directly at him. Her eyes so glassy now they looked fake, her lips trying to move. He paused for a moment and then walked closer to her. With a flame-resistant gloved hand that had been splashed with the gasoline, he touched her cheek and then her hair. Tony continued to howl from across the bed, and Kaymen leaned down closer to Ronnella.
“I’m…sorry…Kaymen,” she whispered, her breath hitching as the drug relaxed every muscle in her body. “I’m so sorry.”
He tried to kiss her forehead the way he used to do whenever she felt sad, but it didn’t feel right. It felt dirty and sordid and he yanked away from her, yelling, “It’s too late to be sorry.”
With purposeful movements, he yanked his jacket open and reached down into the pocket of the jeans he wore beneath the turnouts. The bright light of victory soared through him as he felt the lighter in that moment.
A match would’ve been preferable to some, or anything with a flame that he could’ve dropped onto the gasoline-drenched floor and ran as the flames exploded, but Kaymen had an up-close and personal relationship with fire. It obeyed him. So when he kneeled down and flicked the lighter’s switch, that flame hit the gasoline, and a blinding spark of yellow-orange erupted. He stepped back then, as easily as if he’d been moving from one room to the next, but he didn’t leave. He only moved back enough so he could watch the flames without any of them getting on him.
Ronnella opened her mouth to scream again, but the sound was stilted by the drug steadily seeping into her system. Tony yelled and intended to jump off the bed, but as soon as his legs went over the side, they were met by the rising flames that had traveled along the gasoline path. In seconds, the bed was surrounded and two of the people he’d thought would be his friends for life were about to take their last breath.
Painswick
One Week Later
“This isn’t the cottage,” Sandra said as she stepped into the front foyer of the clubhouse. “It’s too fancy.”
“Yes, this place is fancy,” Tuppence answered from behind them.
