Time's Up, Afton (Afton Morrison, #4)

By Brent Jones

Some secrets stay buried for a lifetime, but nothing lasts forever.

Connected to a number of high-profile deaths, Afton finds herself not only under scrutiny from the chief of police, but damned in the court of public opinion, as well.

In the aftermath of the fiery assault on Wakefield, a low-level gang has infiltrated the town, flooding its streets with bad drugs, killing several teenagers. As Afton prepares for the final showdown with her tormentor, she marks each gang member as a target for elimination, in a methodical plan to gain the upper hand. What follows is a race against the clock that will keep readers guessing until the very last page, as Afton risks life and limb to fulfill her murderous mission of doing good in the world.

TIME'S UP, AFTON is the fourth and final part in a new serial thriller by author Brent Jones. Packed with grit and action, THE AFTON MORRISON SERIES delves into a world of moral ambiguity, delivering audiences an unlikely heroine in the form of a disturbed vigilante murderess.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brent Jones
• Release date: Oct 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370577354

Brent Jones

Brent Jones is the global manager for land records and cadastre at Esri. His is responsible for strategic industry planning, business development, risk analysis and marketing, focusing on high accuracy GIS, advanced surveying data management, civil engineering, cadastre, land records, and land registration in the developing world. Brent Jones is president-elect for the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) and past president of the Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA). He graduated from the University of Maine with a Bachelor of Science degree in survey engineering (1987).

Book preview

Prologue

Just as I began to cross the room, there was a crackling sound, and it came from the radio Banks had clipped on his shoulder. I stared down at it, not moving an inch, dreading whatever transmission might come. It would be some member of law enforcement, announcing his imminent arrival. Coming up the stairs, perhaps. To my surprise, however, it was him. You’re unbelievable, do you know that? After having seen his face, the voice sounded out of place, a total mismatch to his haggard exterior. "I mean, my God, Afton. So much needless killing, and you were supposed to be the good twin. But don’t kid yourself, not even for a moment. This isn’t over. You’ll pay dearly for this. I swear on Clara’s name, I’ll make you pay."

I thought about grabbing the radio to fire back a response. I wasn’t scared of him. Not anymore. But not now. There was no time.

I crossed the room and tugged down on the cord, drawing the blinds up to the ceiling. I hoisted up the window, the only window in this apartment that had no screen behind it. I couldn’t help but wonder, though, if I’d missed some important detail. I tried to play it out in my head, over and over again. Warwick shot Banks, then after an argument, the unknown man shot Warwick with his own gun, and in the chaos of it all, I managed to get my hands on the service weapon Banks had been carrying. At seeing me armed, the unknown man fled. Clara and the surgeon tried to tackle me, and that’s when I shot them. Both of them, shot fucking dead. No, no, not tackle me. They—I approached the short table of surgical instruments and knocked a pair of scalpels to the floor—tried to stab me, and that’s when I shot them.

Did that version of events make sense? Screeching tires rounded the corner and tore down the street, which jolted me to a simple conclusion: This version had to work. I didn’t have time to invent another story.

I held the gun out into the morning sky and discharged the four shots in Clara’s chest. Pop-pop-pop-pop! And the three shots lodged inside the surgeon. Pop-pop-pop!

There was more to do, yet I hesitated, watching Animus stand over the surgeon’s lifeless body, grinning and humming a dissonant tune to herself. She prodded at the gaping crimson holes in his chest with one hand and beckoned me with the other. Come . . . play, Afton.

The smell of all the wet blood transfixed my senses, thick and metallic, fresh and spread across the floor. It was impossible to tell where one rich pool ended and the next began. My hands trembled at the sight of it. My heart hammered and raced and skipped beats. My whole body was moist with perspiration. Think, Afton, think!

I tossed the service weapon to the floor and yanked down the window. I dropped the blinds and raced to the bedroom, where I found an old towel in the closet. I used it to pick up the hatchet and Chris’s handgun, and rolled them together. I had to stash them somewhere, come back for them later, and hope that they wouldn’t be found by investigators in the meantime.

I shot out the door and up the stairwell toward a locked door. It wasn’t accessing the roof I was interested in, however. It was the concrete blocks surrounding the door. More than once, I’d witnessed a teen on the second floor stash his weed and cigarettes behind a loose block, where his father wouldn’t find them. This wouldn’t be a permanent solution, but it would have to do for the time being. I strained to slide the large block from the wall, exposing just enough space to place the towel behind it.

Heavy footsteps were echoing up the stairwell. I raced back down the stairs and into the apartment. I dove to my knees in a pool of blood, right in front of the pile of bodies, placing both hands on the back of my head, waiting for whatever would come next.

Chapter 1

Kim’s dorm room reminded me of how I’d always pictured inpatients living at some sort of psychiatric facility. It wasn’t padded or anything, but it was rectangular and no bigger than eight by ten feet. It had white walls, a white door, and a narrow window covered with white roll-down shades. And I’m not talking about a soft off-white variant. No eggshell or vanilla or bone or champagne, but a harsh white, blinding like freshly fallen snow. Her desk was white, too, as was the chair in front of it. Even the goddamn twin bed we sat on, wedged in the corner of the room, was fitted with pristine white sheets. I wondered if I might find a mint collection of straitjackets in her closet.

I sat near the foot of the bed, facing her at the head with her back to the wall. To be frank, calling it a bed was a bit of a stretch. It was more of a cot with a thin mattress, hard as bricks, and it reminded me of the sleeping arrangement in the basement on Sage. I wasn’t about to tell her that, though. It was her who had to sleep on the damn thing, and I didn’t want to give her nightmares.

She adjusted herself, leaning toward me with her legs folded under her. So that’s it?

I’d recounted the whole story, the same as I’d outlined it to the police. That’s it, Kim.

Clara’s dead, and Kenneth’s murder charges were dropped? Just like that?

You sound dubious.

She had her forehead scrunched, and she made a halfhearted attempt at whistling. Thinking through what to say next, I figured. "Not dubious, just a bit, um, surprised."

Surprised?

"Well, you went out hunting for Clara, right? With the lockdown in effect?"

God, how tired I was of answering these sorts of questions. I tried to look in any direction but hers, noting a glossy poster pinned to the wall. New, it appeared, given its sharp edges. Five pretty boys, linking arms in white tee shirts, outfitted with enough product in their hair to resemble hard plastic. Some kind of band, I thought, although none of them were holding instruments. Jonas Brothers?

She stared at me with one eyebrow raised before following my gaze. One Direction.

One what?

Afton . . . She grumbled something under her breath, making a show of pouting her thin lips.

Oh, all right. The truth is, I just wanted to talk to her, to see if I could convince her to turn herself in.

She studied my face. Right. I knew just what she was thinking. She was thinking that I was full of shit, and she wasn’t wrong. "And, like, Ray just admitted to killing Kenneth? Right there in front of the chief?"

He did.

And, um, you told them Clara’s death was in self-defense?

"Told them? What’s that supposed to mean?"

"You wanted her dead, didn’t you? After all the harm she did? After she, uh, tried to m-murder Jared? She fidgeted with the bedsheets, making her discomfort evident. And, you know, your urges . . ." The word urges came out a soft hiss, half-censoring herself as she said it.

"I had no intention of killing my sister, Kim. That’s the truth."

You mean it?

I do. All that’s behind me now, I promise. I’m getting help. I’m starting therapy next week. Did you know that? She shook her head. "I’ve been running more, too. It’s a lot like fighting an addiction, I think. I don’t know if the urges will ever go away completely, but I’m never going to act on them again. I tried to smile, hoping she would be convinced, although I was certain some of my insincere bullshit must’ve been obvious. My secret’s safe with you, right?"

She nodded after a period of brief hesitation. It was as though she didn’t know what to believe. "So you seriously only went there to talk to her?"

Yes.

And she ambushed you? Her and the guy in scrubs? And that’s when you shot them?

Exactly. Didn’t I already—

Why do you think that other guy was there? The surgeon or whatever?

No clue.

I’ve seen him all over the news. I swallowed hard at the word news, only because Kim had said she’d seen him, meaning Sal. But I had a feeling that she’d also seen me on the news, even out here, hundreds of miles from Wakefield. "His family, too. I just, like, feel so sorry for them."

Sorry, huh? It’s funny how the targets of violent crimes are portrayed in the media. They’re almost always described as perfect upstanding citizens, righteous to a fault. In the case of Salvatore Bochicchio, however, the acclaimed surgeon, he really had been an upstanding citizen, and reporters hadn’t been shy about revealing who’d shot and killed this beloved, church-going, family man.

It had been me who’d shot him, of course, in what police insisted to the public was a clear case of self-defense. And within a day or two of his demise, the case was officially closed, and the public began to shift their fleeting attention spans to the remainder of the Bochicchio family. Their five bodies had been discovered by a Portsmouth mailman in an underground bunker, not far from the gated community they’d called home. A much more gripping tale for the public to consume, like something straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster. I’d told Sal before Tia shot him, that no matter what he said or did, his family would end up dead. Cold comfort, I guess, to learn that things had panned out just as I’d predicted them.

Had Sal’s death been an isolated incident, I’m sure it would have garnered a lot more state-wide scrutiny. There would’ve been thousands of crazed journalists flocking to Wakefield, eager to sit me down for a one-on-one exclusive. There would have been a thorough investigation to get to the bottom of what had really happened, given that there was no evidence linking Sal to Clara’s crimes. Not to mention that his body had gone missing from the town morgue, along with hers. But in the aftermath of dozens of fatal arsons, the hunt for an unknown man in a police sketch, and intrigue surrounding the murder of Sal’s wife and four children, I’d somehow managed to avoid being the target of mass hysteria.

Still, my face had been all over the news. The media had portrayed me, freshly discharged of murder in the case of Kenneth Pritchard, as Clara’s helpless victim. Yes, victim, having first been falsely accused of murder, then taken hostage by her twin sister a few days later. Oh, how I detested being made to look so weak and fragile for the world to see, although it did make me a bit easier to forget. After all, when tragedy strikes, we seldom remember the casualties. It’s the perpetrators of violent crimes that go down in history books. I mean, we all know who Osama bin Laden is, but good luck naming one of the other three thousand lives lost in his attack on America.

Minimizing my involvement in both cases was supposed to be a good thing, but the damage was done. With no more than an internet search, my name would forever be linked to the deaths of Kenneth Pritchard, Salvatore Bochicchio, and Clara Moss. Three people that I hadn’t even fucking killed. Although, to be frank, that third one I didn’t mind so much. If I were being honest, it would’ve been nice to get some credit for Clara’s death. A piece of handwritten fan mail, even.

The silver lining to all this unwanted attention was that I’d managed to protect Tia. The police had no idea that she’d been present, let alone responsible, for the deaths of Sal and Clara. Neither did Ray, which was just how I wanted it. As far as he knew, it had been me who’d shot his—our—sister, and that meant he had a score to settle with me alone, not Tia.

I’d zoned out and became aware of it all at once. Kim had been prattling on, as usual, but all I caught was, . . . somehow escaped during all that? After killing the dirty cop?

Ray, you mean? I cleared my throat. Yeah, that’s right.

And the police are out looking for him?

Not exactly.

Wait, what? Why not? I’ve seen his sketch on the news.

"Yeah, but I never told them who the unknown man was." Although I wondered if, by now, recuperating in his hospital bed, Banks had pieced it together for himself. It had been me, after all, who’d suggested that he ought to take a deeper look into the Moss family.

Kim deflated a little and stared down into her lap. In other words, you’re planning to track him down yourself. Is that it? Yes, of course that was it. It was time for the hunter to become the hunted, and it would soon be time for the final showdown. She was quick to add, "Not that I’d totally blame you. I kinda like the thought of making him pay for everything he’s done."

"No, that’s not it, Kim. I just don’t want the cops talking to him, all right? He knows far too much. Haven’t you been listening? I pressed the tips of my fingers to my chin in emblematic prayer, pleading with her through wide and expectant eyes. I’m telling you. No more heroics. No more killing. I swear to Christ, I’m over it. What’s done is done, and I can’t change that. Pete Albright’s death was an accident and it should’ve never happened. And Clara and her accomplice were both killed in self-defense. They attacked me first. With fucking scalpels, Kim! What was I supposed to do? Big Red was no accident, of course, nor was her murder in self-defense, but Kim didn’t need to know that part. No one did. It was just lucky that I was able to grab the chief’s gun in time."

"But Ray knows you killed Clara, right? She again scrunched her forehead. Isn’t he going to come looking for you? Don’t you need some kind of protection?"

You ever hear the expression, give him enough rope and he’ll hang himself?

No. She tilted her head to the side, examining me from a different angle. Did you just make that up?

No, Kim. It’s a real thing that people say. Point is, I don’t think he’d be stupid enough to come back to Wakefield. Not now that Banks has seen his face. I mean, Jesus, you said it yourself, his sketch has been on TV every night for the last week.

So he just gets away with it?

Afraid so.

She shook her head for a moment, lost in thought. He’s terrifying to look at. Even without the clown mask in his sketch.

You think so? I thought he looked kind of, I don’t know, dainty? Soft? I couldn’t help but peek at the poster of the boy band one more time, right as