Riss by Kathi S. Barton Page A

tomorrow and call her for me so I can tell her it’s okay to come home. Kala needs to come back to work for you guys, but the place where she is staying is being watched by the cops so I can’t tell her it’s okay. Everything is okay now. That way I can get our new address. She probably forgot to leave it for me.” Dan sat down at the table and looked around the room. “This is a nice house you got here. You think maybe Kala would like it? I don’t know what she can afford to pay, but I’m really thinking this would be something she should look into. There is a lot of room for all my cable stuff and my notes and stuff.”
    Randy started talking again , but Dan ignored him. He never said anything worth listening to anyway, even if he could understand him. And when Dan saw the blood on the floor, he got up to look at where it might be coming from. The other room was a mess compared to the dining room he and Randy had been talking in. Dan went into the room with his gun out just in case someone was hunting him again. Those damned police.
    The den , he supposed it was called, had broken furniture all over the place, and there was more than just the blood on the floor. There were splashes of it over the walls and across the pictures that hung on them. He looked around, wondering if he’d hurt himself, and started patting down his body for wounds. Then he saw her, or at least her legs hanging out from under the broken table.
    The woman looked as if someone had beaten in her face , Dan noticed when he got closer to her. And when he took a step closer still to her, he could see that not only had it been her face but her entire head as well. Most of the back of it had been beaten in, and there was what looked like brain matter on the floor by her. He looked at the rest of her body, but stepping around the table she was under, he could see that her arms and legs looked badly beaten as well. Someone had hated this woman. Going toward the opposite door, he found what appeared to be a dog, too. This one someone had cut up and removed his head from his big body. Dan was sickened by the sight, and had to leave the room now or throw up everywhere.
    Going back into the kitchen , he stood near the sink with the cold water running over his wrists to try and make himself feel better. The sight in the other room had been too much. Then he noticed the blood on the rags that were laying on the sink and in it.
    “ Somebody hurt that woman,” Dan said. The man whimpered loudly, and Dan went to stand in front of him. “Did you know her? The woman in the other room, did you know who she was? I gotta tell you, she’s been beaten worse than I ever saw anyone before.”
    When the man started talking , Dan reached over and pulled the tape off his mouth. The tears running down his face made Dan want to hit him. Men did not cry. He’d heard that most of his life. Randy started talking so fast that Dan had to ask him to slow down.
    “ You murdered my wife. You did it.” Dan started to shake his head, but Randy nodded as he continued. “You took the ball bat to her head the moment she came into the room, and when I tried to help her, you hit me until I lost consciousness. You murdered my wife.”
    “ No. You’ve got it all wrong. I’m not allowed to kill anyone. They said if I did, then I’d have to go back.” Dan started pacing around the table as Randy sobbed. “I’ve never killed a person before. They told me that when I hurt that kid that I could have, but I’ve never hurt anyone since. Not even when they put me in that terrible place.”
    Dan felt his body turn cold at the thought of the place he ’d been taken as a teenager. The little boy hadn’t died, so he could never understand why he’d been chained to the bed and left there to die. Of course, after several months he’d been freed. His momma had come and got him and took him to the house, but she’d told him if he hurt again, he was never coming back to stay with her.