Murder in the Magic City: A Micah Brantley Story, G.P. Sorrells [reading comprehension books TXT] 📗

I’m going to make damn sure whatever time you have left on this rock is so miserable you’ll be begging me to end it.”

“Better get to torturing me,” Bennett said, spitting out more blood. “Cause I ain’t telling you a damn thing.” Castillo punched him in the face. “Even if I knew the code, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“You’re bluffing,” Castillo said, a hint of concern in his voice. “He’s got to be bluffing, right? Right?”

Micah felt the world around him go quiet, as though he briefly began to both exist and not exist, all at once. It was an unnerving sensation. One he wanted no part of. Just as he wound back down, coming to grips with what was taking place in front of him, the shrill whoop of sirens pierced the air off in the distance. “Cops,” he muttered to no one as much as to himself. “We’ve got to get out of here, Jimmy. Now!”

“We need that damn code. I want whatever’s in that safe.”

“Fuck the code and fuck the safe. Let’s just grab what we can and get out of here before we make the five-o’clock news.”

“You can just leave me here,” Bennett suggested. “I’ll be dead before the cops show up.”

“Nice try,” Micah said. He shot Bennett in the head and rushed over to the lockers, grabbing hold of everything he could. There was a bag folded and stuffed up in a corner. He opened it up and filled it to the seams.

Castillo stood stupefied before gradually coming to terms with the situation and joining Micah. “Fucking cops, always ruining a good thing.”

“He would never talk. You know that, right?” Micah couldn’t help but feel a bit of contempt for the way Castillo was handling the fact that things hadn’t gone as planned. That he didn’t account for this exact possibility was downright disappointing. Something pulled Micah to action. A notion that perhaps his action was necessary to prevent this same thing from playing out in the future. But he brushed it away.

When both men had a pair of duffel bags full to the brim, they stood up and walked toward the front door. A pounding on the bathroom wall stopped them in their tracks. “Let me out of here!” The words sounded muffled, as though the person on the other side of the drywall were screaming in vain through walls a few feet thick.

Chapter 42

“Let’s go, Micah,” Castillo said, one foot out the door.

“No, you get the car. I’ll meet you down the street, near the gas station.”

“Are you nuts? Those cops catch you and you’re as good as dead.”

“I’ll be fine, trust me.”

“Suit yourself,” Castillo relented. “Give me one of those bags, though. Just in case your dumbass gets caught, I’d like to make sure most of the goods are with yours truly.”

“Thanks for the concern.”

Castillo put the strap of the duffel around his torso like a backpack and ran. The pounding continued, though the intensity faded with each passing barrage. Micah cautiously approached the bathroom door. He turned the knob and pushed the door back into the room. Whatever he had expected to see, he felt certain that a young girl with torn clothes locked to the back of the toilet was low on the totem pole of possibilities.

“Please, get me out of here,” she pleaded. Dried blood stained her legs, a harsh reminder of the anguish she had endured. Micah felt his heart drop as he stared at the young girl, thinking of his kid sister. Reality shattered in that moment. Of all the terrible things he had done in his life, this seemed to exist on another plane entirely. The sirens grew louder, but the cops hadn’t yet made their way to the motel. “Look, I don’t care where you take me, just get me away from this damn toilet. I’m begging you.”

Micah snapped back to the present. “Hold that thought.” He ran over to Bennett and rummaged through the man’s pockets. “Won’t be needing this anymore,” he said, grabbing a wallet, “but it’s not going to help me much.” He stood in thought for a moment before approaching Jeremiah. The search was more fruitful. He came away with a wallet and a keyring.

“I figured you left,” the girl said as Micah walked over and unlocked the handcuffs securing her to the toilet.

“No, just had to find a way to get you out of there,” he said. Micah threw the handcuffs into the bathtub and motioned for the girl to follow him. “Come on, we need to move.”

She didn’t hesitate. Stopping briefly to spit on the pair of corpses, she stayed close to Micah until they reached the Impala. Castillo wore a look of confusion mixed with annoyance as he stepped out of the car.

“Wasn’t planning on dipping into that market yet, my friend.”

“Not like that, Jimmy,” Micah replied, tossing the duffel bag into the trunk. “Get in. We need to get the fuck out of here.” The girl slithered into the backseat and buckled herself in. Micah and Castillo slipped into their seats soon after. “I couldn’t just leave her in there.”

“Of course, you could’ve,” Jimmy said, glancing back at the girl. “No offense, chica.” She blew him off.

“She’s been through enough shit, Jimmy,” Micah said, mashing the gas and peeling away from the motel in a cloud of tire-smoke. “Couldn’t leave her to the boys in blue. There are a lot of ways it could get worse from where she sits now.”

“And what do you plan on doing, exactly? Adopting her?” Castillo chuckled at the thought of Micah caring for another life when he existed professionally to remove the very option from so many.

“If it comes to that, maybe,” Micah said, gripping the steering wheel tightly. “But right now, none of that matters.” The sirens were louder now, the crescendo growing uncomfortably close. Micah looked up, instinctively, at the rearview and saw flashing lights.

“This is the Miami-Dade Metro Police Department,” came a voice over the loudspeaker