Page 67 of Javier

“What a shitty way to go.” I shook my head. “Foul play?”

“I’d say so.” King allowed for a sarcastic scoff. “We got a hold of the coroner’s report. The man’s alcohol levels were astronomical. Traces of a cocktail of sleeping meds were also found in his blood. Estimated time of death was a week from discovery. His gardener found the body. Wilbur Bekker had left for boot camp five days before. You do the math.”

“Fuck the fucker.” I scrubbed my face. “He killed his own father?”

“And according to his maternal aunt, he killed his mother as well.”

I drew back. “How?”

“Mother died of a snake bite when Junior was ten,” King said. “The aunt reported the kid experimented with his father’s poisonous snakes on all kinds of creatures—mice, dogs, cats, pigs. She said the kid had a sick fascination with the venoms’ effects, you know, necrotic tissue, respiratory arrest, bleed outs, the works.”

I snorted. “That doesn’t sound morbid.”

“Beyond that, the black mamba that bit Bekker’s mother just happened to be Snake’s childhood pet,” King added. “That’s why the aunt thinks he killed his mother.”

“Holy shit.” Bekker had been a twisted SOB early on. “Did she report this to the police?”

“At the time, Bekker Senior prevented her from filing a report,” King replied. “His wife had filed for divorce. Who knows, he might’ve even taught the kid how to do the deed. The aunt reports that Bekker Senior said that if she called the police on his son, she might find an adder in her purse and die like her sister.”

“I get that Bekker Senior kept his son out of jail, but how did Bekker Junior not go to jail for killing his father?”

“We think Wilbur Bekker had connections in the justice system. He bribed the authorities and got out of the country. Henever returned and charges were never filed.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” I huffed. “We’re dealing with a high IQ psychopath and serial murderer, trained by an elite force, financed by one of the world’s most dangerous organizations, who’s obsessed with venomous reptiles.”

“In a nutshell,” King returned.

“Sounds peachy.” I shook my head.

“We’re running out of time,” King warned. “You need to be careful, bro.”

“So do you, man.” I tracked the last seconds in the countdown. “Keep the nuns safe. Watch your six, K-man.”

“Will do,” he said as the timer alarmed. “King out.”

The screen went black. I erased my history and turned off the laptop. It struck me that King had stuck out his neck and risked his safety to deliver vital information to me.

Since my arrival to Tracker Team, he and I had often been at odds. I had no doubt the straight arrow thought I was a hothead, a player, and a prick, which I was. And yet at the end of this conversation, he’d sounded as if he cared for more than Missy and the mission.

He’d almost sounded as if he cared for me.

***

Missy

I woke up gasping in the middle of the night. I’d had a dream, and it left me reeling. I remembered a snake—a king cobra, to be more specific—with its hood flared and its fangs dripping with venom. My heart still pounded in my chest and my mouth was dry as a desert, but I reminded myself that cobras were not endemic to the Americas.

My nightmare had probably been born out of the conversation I’d had with Javier earlier today, before I went out to dinner with Pierre and Gerard for the second night in a row. Javier had sat me down to brief me on Wilbur Bekker, akaSnake. Speaking in his detached soldier tone, Javier had shared gruesome details about the merc’s past.

It was the stuff of nightmares, and since Javier insisted I needed to know my enemy, my mind ruminated on it for the rest of the day. Another fun night with Pierre and Gerard had not succeeded at scrubbing the images that formed in my mind, which explained why I was wide awake in the middle of the night, recalling the cobra tattooed on Bekker’s face with uncanny clarity.

Not a portent, not a prediction.It was just my imagination going wild. The last thing I remembered from the dream was a voice echoing in my head.It’s up to you, the voice had said.

Unable to go back to sleep, I got up, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and downed half of it in one gulp. On my way back to my bed, I couldn’t resist taking a peek outside. Javier slept on the deck. The hammock couldn’t be nearly as posh and comfortable as the big bed I enjoyed for myself. By now, his spine had to be feeling the bend.

But hey, it was his choice. It spoke loads about his attitude toward me that he chose to spend his nights crammed into the colorful hammock. It looked like an over-stuffed tamale with him in it.

I was about to go back to my bed when I heard a noise outside. I cracked open the glass sliders and caught some garbled words. Pushing apart the screen doors, I stepped out and approached the hammock. The light of the moon illuminated the deck. Javier thrashed within the fabric. Listening carefully, I made out a few of his mumbles.

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