The Killing League - By Dani Amore Page 0,15

on the office door.

“I’m ready!” Janice called out.

Mack shut down his computer, stepped out of the office, closing and locking the door behind him.

Janice had on shorts, a tank top and her walking shoes.

“I want to see some birds!” she said.

Mack smiled. “Me, too.”

He put on his running shoes, closed up the house, set the alarm and walked outside with Janice.

There was a nature preserve at the end of their street. It was Janice’s favorite place in the world. There were at least six different trails. One took walkers along a narrow river, another deep into the marsh, and another often treated hikers to a sight of wild pigs crashing through the underbrush.

“Let’s do the water one,” Janice said. Mack knew she meant the river trail.

“That sounds good,” he said.

“That’s where the man was watching me,” Janice said. She pointed toward the side of the house where her bedroom was located.

Mack walked over and looked at the grass. He saw no signs of foot traffic, but the grass was the Florida variety, thick and almost plastic-like.

He looked up at the house. There was motion lights at the front and rear of the house, but not on this side. However, the alarm system was state-of-the-art. And Janice’s windows were always locked shut, for various reasons.

“Come on, let’s go!” Janice sang out. Mack loved these walks with his sister. He couldn’t help but be reminded of when she was a little girl, all happy and smiles and laughter.

They walked down the long drive toward the street. She slipped her hand inside his.

Mack smiled.

Janice swung her arms and began to skip down the driveway.

“What the heck,” Mack said.

And he started skipping with his sister.

18.

Truck Drivin’ Man

Horvath Trucking was a small-time operation, based outside Macon, Georgia. It consisted of a main office, a refurbished doublewide on cinderblocks, and a yard filled with at least fifty trucks and twice as many trailers.

Each driver had their own mail slot at the main office and Roger Dawson, fresh from delivering his load of steel cable, a load that had shifted several times and required way more attention than Dawson had been willing to give, walked up the steps to the office.

The secretary, a woman named Connie, was at the back of the small space making a photocopy when Dawson entered. She turned, glanced, and nodded at him.

Dawson looked at Connie but didn’t make eye contact. He’d asked her out not long after he first started working for Horvath Trucking. He hadn’t planned on asking her out, but it just slipped out. He’d fumbled the question and it came out awkwardly. He’d felt like an asshole by the time he was done with the asking.

She turned him down flat. Practically laughed at him, like he was just another loser driving a truck. Like he wasn’t good enough to kiss her flabby white ass.

Later, he’d heard her talking and laughing with some other drivers and he knew she was making fun of him. Ever since, he’d ignored her. Fucking bitch. Oh, how he would have loved to hurt her. But he knew you couldn’t shit where you ate. So he left her in his mind, where he repeatedly fucked her and broke her neck.

Now, Dawson went to his mailbox, grabbed the small bundle, made sure the paycheck was in there, and went back out to the yard.

In the sunlight, the air held a dusty haze from the dirt kicked up by the trailer trucks. Dawson felt the dust in his eyes, and welcomed it. He was a man of the dirt. A man of the Earth. He thought about his parents, those two always had dirt, and his father, blood, under their fingernails.

Dawson looked at his index finger. No dirt, but a little grime from the trailer’s electrical cables. He was good with his hands and made repairs to his rig most of the other drivers had to have done by a mechanic.

Dawson slid the tip of his finger beneath the folded part of a fancy envelope he’d gotten that had been underneath his paycheck. He’d double checked the front of the card, because he’d never gotten anything this fancy-ass in his entire life.

But there it was on the front: Mr. Roger Dawson. He smirked at the “Mr.” Usually only the lot lizards called him that.

He ripped open the envelope and pulled out a card. It read “Truck Drivin’ Man” on the cover.

Dawson’s thick brow furrowed. What the fuck was this? He flipped open the card and read what