Abducting the fool had been too easy but it’s taken days to bring him to a breaking point. Locked in a closet in his own warehouse, he was certain someone was coming for him. Jacks watched over his ward as he screamed for help, threatened and finally promised anything, everything Jacks had ever wanted, if only he’d let him out, give him food, or more than a liter of water.
“Come on now, you can be a better duck than that,” Jacks taunts, the smell of food drifting through the air into the intolerably small cell.
The full grown man waddles, his knees by his ears, and flaps his elbows, quacking like an idiot.
“Ta Gueule,” [Shut up] Jacks mutters, finally satisfied. He tosses the meager slice of pizza on the floor, watching the desperate man scamper over the floor to scoop it into his hands and eat it, despite the dirt. As the man eats, he lifts a phone that’s rested on the floor for the entirety of his imprisonment, twisting it into a hypnotic dance. “You ready yet?”
The man cowering on the ground slows his chewing as he stares at the phone. The swallow is slow, dry and pained. Yes, Jacks thinks. He’s almost there.
“It only calls one number. They’ll get you out but there are going to be an awful lot of questions. I suggest you answer them honestly.”
“The FBI,” the man fills in, well aware of their arrangement.
Jacks gives a slow dip of his head in agreement, “The FBI.”
The fear of prison once kept him from calling; then it was the fear of retribution. Now the man squatting like a starved golem is beginning to understand that they are his only way out of this hell. “Why are you doing this?”
“You messed with the wrong kid,” Jacks growls.
The prisoner swallows his saliva. He’s done. Jacks drops the phone and leaves the cell, locking it behind him. Pulling the mask from his face, he leaves the building.
The second day with no sign of Jacks brought more angst than rage. By the third day, Sophie gathered her work from the office and carried it home with her to post some kind of watch. The television black, the radio silenced and every window in her small apartment thrown open to the cool autumn day, she worked amidst an eerie silence. Her papers scattered on the floor before her and her laptop perched on her knee, she trudges through the numbers, jumping to sit rigidly straight whenever the sounds of an engine meets her ears.
A rumbling propels her to her feet. It seems to pause close by and draws Sophie down her steps but it’s not Jacks. A large diesel truck backs into the driveway, its bed laden with mulch.
“You alright, Sophie?” Jeremy asks, wandering out of the house in nothing but his long board shorts.
Noting how very much he looks like his brother, Sophie swallows and straightens out the disappointed expression. “Fine. What are you doing home?”
Jeremy shrugs, “Waiting for something to blow over.”
Sophie’s eyebrows rise with surprise. “Skipping?”
“I’ll make up the work,” Jeremy promises in a gruff voice. “How about you? Why aren’t you at work?”
Sophie lifts her chin and straightens her back at the implication. “I brought it home with me.”
“You’re waiting for Jacks,” Jeremy accuses.
Her knee-jerk reaction is to deny it, to wave off her growing obsession and ignore the rock in her chest, but the possibility that Jeremy might know something- even if it’s the heart shattering news that he left without even as much as a good-bye- propels her to ask, “Where is he, Jeremy?”
YOU ARE READING
Playing Jacks
Mystery / Thriller**Winner: Licking River Writers Contest** After five years away, Jacks returns to reclaim his life- only to find a lush accountant with curves that fill out her clothes living in the apartment over his folks' pool house. Oh, the attraction is there...
