The Wrath Walker (The Wrath Series Book 1) by Matthew Newson (moboreader txt) 📕

“Okay, Ron, you’re right. I should have known what you were doing all along, so that tells me there is another reason for your warning. Don’t tell me you’ve all of a sudden grown a sense of nobility. Tell me. Why did you call me if you could have run? You sounded pretty convinced on the phone that you were already a dead man, or has being confronted with your own mortality caused you to suddenly grow a conscience?”

Ron’s defensive posture throttled back down to a nervous trembling as he scrambled for something to say. “I told you before, kid, I wanted to do the right thing by you for once and give you a heads up.”

“So noble, but we both know you would turn tail and run if you really thought you were in danger. Using my detective skills tells me that you can’t just take off, because something is stopping you from doing that.”

Ron smirked and looked around the room. “Come on, kid, it’s not like that. I figured it would be like old times, and we can stop these guys.”

“Stop lying! If you want me to help you, you have to be straight with me. You’ve already tried leaving, haven’t you? But you couldn’t, could you?” I asked Ron pointedly. “You knew this day was coming the moment you got arrested back then, and that’s why you testified in open court that you tricked me, and I didn’t know a thing. So, you could use me once again to help you when the Riccis came for the pound of flesh you owe them.”

Ron rubbed his forehead and exhaled in defeat. “Okay, kid, you’re right on both counts. I knew this day would come, and I knew you would help me because you’re a good person at your core.”

“And about the leaving town part?”

“You’re right about that as well, and I’ve tried but I can’t.” He looked away from me.

“There we go. Okay, Ron, why can’t you leave town? What’s the matter, running low on dirty money? Are you too afraid to leave all of this behind, and be forced to live like a normal person?”

Ron got up and slightly lifted up one of the slats on the blinds and peered out into his backyard for a moment. Once he was satisfied no one was there, he sat back down at the table.

Ron looked visibly frightened. “It’s not like that, Brandon. Some really weird things have been going on lately. For the last several days I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that I’m being watched.”

“Have you seen anyone following you or watching your house on your many security cameras?”

“That’s just it, I haven’t seen anyone, but I can’t shake the feeling. So, this morning, I thought I’d clean out my safety deposit boxes and get out of town for good, but they were all empty when I checked them. Even the bag I keep hidden in the trunk of my car for emergencies like this was gone,” Ron stood up in a full panic. “Did you hear me, Brandon, it’s all gone!”

Last I checked banks didn’t want people keeping money in safety deposit boxes, but Ron didn’t care about any of that. “Okay. Okay. There has to be some kind of explanation for that. I mean, someone had to have taken your money. The bank keeps logs of when you access your safety deposit boxes, did you ask to see the logs?”

“I did, and the logs show I’m the only one who’s been in them. I demanded to speak to the manager, but the manager at each bank assured me no one else had been in any of the boxes but me.”

“Wait. Banks. How many different boxes did you have? You know what, don’t answer that, I don’t want to know. Did you tell anyone about the safety deposit boxes, or did someone steal your key or make a copy of it?”

Ron spiraled more and more by the second as we talked. “No! No one else knew about the boxes, and I keep the keys on me at all times. There’s no way someone could have made a copy of them and bought off an employee at each bank to let them clean out the boxes. I can understand one or two, but not all of them.”

I started to laugh to myself.

“What’s so funny kid? Does my situation amuse you?”

“A little, but I find the irony to be humorous. God only knows how many people you stole from when you were working for the Amaras, and now you have been robbed blind in the same way.”

“This isn’t funny, kid. Stop laughing, this is serious.”

“Okay, I’ll try and restrain myself. Emptying all those boxes would be a hard one to pull off unless they had been at this for months. Then again, that’s a lot of immoral people willing to break the law. What was the last straw that made you want to call me for help if you were still willing to cut and run without the money from the lock boxes?”

“This afternoon I decided to leave town with what little I had stashed in the trunk of my car. When I checked to see if it was still there and saw it was missing too, I decided to heck with it and I should leave, but my car wouldn’t start.  I checked the engine to find it was completely trashed, and it had been sitting in my locked garage all day. Brandon, I’m telling you something is going on. I didn’t see anyone on my outside cameras, and I don’t have cameras inside for obvious reasons.”

Ron was completely spooked, and even I was starting to get worried by the events of his story. Before I grasped the full danger Ron was in, someone knocked on the front door. We both froze where we stood, and Ron pulled a snub nose .357 revolver from his jacket