Page 43 of Breakdown
Chapter Eight
THERE WASN’T MUCH POINTin hanging around the crime scene, so Peter hotwired a car and made for the metaphorical hills. He took care to drive the speed limit, even as everything inside of him told him to slam the pedal to the floor and get to Nik. A squad of cruisers screamed past him going the opposite direction, sirens blazing, none of them giving the inconspicuous Ford Fusion a second glance as he pulled over to let them by. The ambulance followed a few moments later, though it seemed in less of a rush. His stomach twisted guiltily.
When he was sure the last emergency vehicle had passed, he hit the gas. He let out a ragged gasp of relief.
The sense of betrayal gnawed away at him as he took the on-ramp at reckless speed, pushing all four cylinders in the undersized engine to their very limit as he aimed the car north. If there was still a chance Peter could save Nik, then he wasn’t going to cut and run. He wasn’t his mother. He blew three red lights coming into Northridge alone.
Peter swallowed hard; when he’d left, Nik had the place lit up like a birthday cake. Now the garage was dark. From the parking lot, the maimed bay door winked at him like a malevolent eye. He went to shut off the ignition; there was blood all over the steering wheel, Jordan’s. He hadn’t even registered it until now. For all his rush getting to the shop, he suddenly didn’t want to go in, all those bodies at Volkov’s place splashed behind his eyes in vivid red. He couldn’t get the kid’s face out of his head.
He was going to find Nik dead in there.
The depth of anger in his heart, the unspeakable, all-encompassing misery that had lived in him for so long, the disappointment pressing down on him until he couldn’t fucking stand under the weight of it all—he felt a familiar searing ache for the ability to wash it all away under a nice, clean high. He summoned one of NAs idiotic, banal, and annoyingly true catechisms from somewhere inside himself.Most addicts would rather die than learn anything about themselves. In fact, they do.That got him out of the car and moving, his pry bar clutched firmly in hand. Peter learned long ago that forward was the only option for him.
He gingerly eased open the garage door, side stepping the broken glass on trembling legs. His eyes adjusted slowly to the oppressive darkness. It smelled like a gas station in here. A huge Silverado was splayed sideways across two of the bays, suspended on its undercarriage, its front driver side wheel dropped and hanging unsupported over the oil pit. And, lined up execution style, the forms of three bodies slumped in the waiting room chairs. He was too late. The overpowering sorrow dropped him to his knees, his vision blurred with tears. His lungs felt like they were collapsing in on themselves.
And then one of them squirmed, emitting an urgent moaning sound. Even with only that small, inchoate noise Peter recognized the sound of Nik’s voice. Nik was bound to the chair, mouth covered in duct tape, blood streaming down the side of his face, but alive. Peter let out a sob of relief, closing the gap, locked on his terrified face. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
Nik was looking past him, eyes wide like he had seen a ghost.
There was another muffled yell from the chair next to him. Bewildered, he realized too late that it was Liv, which meant—
Peter spun around, his heart battering against his ribs like a caged hummingbird. As he stalked across the empty shop floor, Erik Bauer didn’t quite look like a ghost; he looked like a nightmare that Peter was never going to wake up from. He was eleven and terrified again, and he could see in the dark amusement in Erik’s eyes that his father knew that too. Peter was hit with the sudden, desperate urge to run. He might have, too, if Nik wasn’t there.
“Peter.” Erik nodded cordially, levelling a Ruger LC9 square at his chest as he flicked on the tracts of fluorescents. “I would say it’s good to see you, but let’s have a little honesty between us for once. It’s not good to see you, Peter. I am rather unhappy that you are here.”
For once in his life, he and his father were on the same page.
“You tried to set me up,” he spat, fingers clenching the pry bar so hard they began to throb. He felt stupid all over again for suspecting Liv was behind this. He should have recognized the brutality of Erik’s handiwork back at Volkov’s. Now Peter had wandered into his trap under-armed and overexposed.
“Triedbeing the operative word, unfortunately. You should be on your way to jail by now. I’d thought there’d be a little poetic justice in that. Oh well, this is probably cleaner.” His father’s gray eyes flashed coldly and his sneer deepened. “Drop your weapon.”
Peter did as he was told. The pry bar was useless at this range anyway.
“Good boy.”
Peter didn’t see any way out of this, not yet, but if he could keep Erik happy, at least he could buy himself a little more time to figure something out. He didn’t usually win against his father, and had the scars to prove it, but he had to try for Nik and Liv.
“So that was the plan, huh? Put me right at the scene of the shoot-out at Volkov’s with cops on the way.” He could feel the eyes on him, not just of Erik, but Liv and Dave. And Nik’s eyes; huge and brown, and trusting in Peter to save him. Peter wished he could, he really did. But all he was doing was stalling. He scanned the room, trying to keep his voice even. “They’d be more than happy to pin it on a career criminal.”
“Oh, don’t think so small, Peter.” Erik smile was tight and frustrated. “The way things have been going in LA right now? If I’d wanted to just frame you for a crime, I could have done it months ago. Do you know how many police I still own?”
“Didn’t seem like they did a great job catching me this time.” Then he spotted it. The unmistakable outline of Nina’s .45 stood out against the grey laminate of the service counter, and Peter made an excruciatingly slow play in that direction. The second Erik cottoned to what he was doing, they were all dead.
“A temporary setback. As soon as they’re done cleaning up the scene at Volkov’s place they’re on their way here.”
“Why shoot up Volkov’s?” Peter gestured to the chairs, hoping to distract his attention. “Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to if you were just planning to come here and finish the rest of us off anyway.”
