For the Trees Read online

  Brett Baker

  For The Trees

  Copyright © 2018 by Brett Baker

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  First edition

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

  Find out more at reedsy.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  1

  Chapter 1

  The first bullet missed my skull by an inch. Maybe two. I know this because I felt the tug on my bun as it passed through the hair on the top of my head. Had I been wearing higher heels, that piece of lead would have pierced my skull and found a nice cozy spot to rest in the middle of my brain.

  And I’d be dead.

  But I wore my brand new pink running shoes, not heels, so the bullet ruined my bun instead of my intact skull.

  Funny thing about someone shooting at you: it gets your attention. I didn’t break stride as I peered over my right shoulder and looked behind me to see the person trying to kill me. I saw a man with a thick black beard and ridiculous aviator sunglasses often worn by men who aren’t talented or brave enough to be real aviators; perhaps the kind of man who would try to shoot and kill a woman just out for a relaxing afternoon run.

  I didn’t recognize the man. Men like him were a dime a dozen, and I’m sure I passed three dozen of them during the first sixteen miles of my run. None of those other men tried to kill me though, which made this guy unique in one way.

  I kept running and didn’t look back again. Instead I sought shelter behind a large concrete planter just beside the lakefront path. Some colorful purple and yellow flowers in full bloom brightened the scene, but I wasn’t there to enjoy the pretty colors, I was there because the concrete shielded me from a man who wanted to kill me. When the first shots rang out, people began to scatter, so no one stood between Aviator Man and me. He looked around as if to make sure no one planned to prevent him from killing me, and then walked toward me.

  That’s what struck me most about that moment. Aviator Man was deliberate. He held the gun in his hand, next to his hip, and walked toward me. He’d decided to stop shooting at me since I’d sought shelter behind the concrete planter. But he didn’t seem worried that I’d run away. He must have known that I can’t outrun a bullet. So he meandered toward me, and I watched, pondering whether to run or stay put. With an armed man trying to kill me, there were no good options.

  Since I don’t carry a gun—those things are dangerous!—I couldn’t fire back at him. I decided to stay put, secure behind the planter, and wait for him to come get me. As he approached the planter he stopped and turned around, looking in the distance, hiding the gun behind his back, as if hiding a tennis ball from a playful puppy. Content that no one planned on stopping him from depositing one of those bullets into me, he sauntered my way.

  “Get out here Mia,” he said. “I just want to talk to you.”

  He knew my name. I’d hoped that maybe this was just some random act of violence, but random criminals don’t know their victim’s names. I didn’t move. I remained crouched behind the planter, my head peeked up just enough to provide a clear view of the maniac with murder on his mind.

  “Let’s talk, Mia,” Aviator Man said. “I’ve been looking for you. I’m so glad I found you.”

  “How do you know my name?” I asked. “Who are you?”

  “I’m the man who is going to kill you,” he said. “Now come on out from behind there.”

  “Do you think I’m an idiot?” I asked. “If you’re trying to kill me, why would I make it easier for you? I’m staying right here. Besides, you lied to me. You just said that you only wanted to talk. I don’t talk to liars.”

  I didn’t move. I peeked over the top of the planter, between the vibrant flowers, and watched Aviator Man. He didn’t seem nervous at all. In fact, he showed no emotion. He was seconds away from killing another human being in front of dozens of witnesses, and it seemed not to bother him at all.

  This guy was a pro.

  I ducked behind the planter, so Aviator Man couldn’t see me. I crawled around the backside of the planter on my hands and knees, away from the tap-tap-tap of his heels hitting the sidewalk. All other sound seemed to pause and I could hear nothing but the sound of his footsteps. They got get closer, and then stopped. He stood just on the other side of the planter.

  “Stand up,” he said. “Let’s talk. Maybe we can sort this out.”

  “I’m fine right here,” I said, still crouching behind the planter. “Why don’t you just keep walking and I’ll forget this ever happened.”

  “I’m sorry, Mia. It’s too late for that. We can’t forget anything.”

  I heard his heels tap toward me, around the circumference of the planter. I scooted along the ground, trying to keep as much concrete between us as possible. He stopped, and I continued crawling along the ground.

  “Stand up!” he shouted, sounding somewhat impatient.

  This time I said nothing. Instead, I crawled as fast as I could around the planter until I saw him right in front of me. Just as I saw him, he heard me, and as he turned around to get a better angle toward me, I jumped to my feet, punched him once in the nose, grabbed his wrist in my hand, gave it a slight twist which broke at least four bones, and made him drop the gun.

  He let out a maniacal growl as I let go of his wrist and kicked him once in the balls. He lifted his other hand toward me as if holding a gun, but I caught his hand, pulled him toward me, and grabbed his throat.

  “Who sent you?” I asked. He had a panicked look on his face, but didn’t try to talk. “How do you know who I am?”

  Aviator Man said nothing. I squeezed tighter and tighter on his throat. “Can you feel my fingertips? It hurts, doesn’t it? My index finger is digging into your trachea. I already felt one of your tracheal rings crack. No big deal, really. It’ll give you a sore throat for a while. Of course, if one of those pieces breaks off and goes into your lungs, that’s bad news. But that’s rare. If I were you, what would concern me most is the cricoid cartilage. Do you know what cricoid cartilage is, Aviator Man?” I paused for a moment as if permitting him to respond, ignoring the fact that my grip on his throat prevented him from talking even if he wanted to. “The cricoid cartilage is right at the top of your windpipe. It’s right here.” I moved my fingertips higher up his throat, massaged the cricoid, and then moved my fingers back down. “If I break the cricoid, all sorts of bad things happen for you. The windpipe collapses, you can’t breath, and if you st
art bleeding, it’s a race in your chest to see if you die because oxygen can’t get into your windpipe, or because blood fills your lungs and you drown. Which sounds worse? I’ll let you choose. Golly fuck, who am I kidding? There’s no difference between the two for you. Either way you die a panic-filled death. It’s horrible. You know it’s coming because you can’t breathe, and you’ll flail about and try to call for help, but no air means no talking, so you’re mute. And really, even if you told someone exactly what was wrong with you, there’d be nothing they could do. The damage is done. Maybe they can hold your hand while you die.”

  Aviator Man’s eyes filled with dread. He swung his right hand toward my head and connected with a fist just in front of my ear. It stunned me, but my grip remained fixed on his throat. I squeezed a little harder as I growled at him, “I’m a fucking inch away from killing you, asshole. The last thing you want to do to someone who has your life in their hands is piss them off. Do you have a fucking death wish, Aviator Man? Are you trying to die today?”

  I looked around the lakefront, and saw no one within two hundred yards in any direction. I paused for a moment and listened for sirens, thinking that some well-meaning good Samaritan must have seen me getting shot at and called the police.

  Nothing.

  Here’s to civilian indifference.

  I had Aviator Man under control, but just eliminating the immediate threat that he posed wasn’t enough. He hadn’t tried to kill me on his own. Someone sent him. And if I couldn’t find out who sent him then I wouldn’t be much better off than before he started shooting at me. Someone would still be trying to kill me, and I wouldn’t know whom.

  “If you’re trying to kill me, then you must know who I am. And if you know who I am then you must know that I have no problem killing you. You’re a fucking pesky mosquito in my ear right now, and I’ll kill you just as quickly. So before you try anything else, keep that in mind. Your life means nothing to me. In fact, you made me stop my run, and usually the penalty for that is death. So you’re already lucky to be alive.”

  I grabbed his right hand with my left hand, and twisted it behind his back. As I let go of his throat, I shoved him away from me, while also pulling his twisted arm toward me. He spun around, facing away from me, his hand in my hand, his arm bent behind his back, and pushed up toward his shoulder blades. He cried out in agony, and bent over at the waist to alleviate the strain. I pulled his other hand behind his back, held his wrists together with my hands, and buried my knee into his butt and pushed him against the concrete planter. He broke his momentum with his face.

  “Don’t break your fucking nose,” I said. “The last thing I need is a pool of blood at our feet because you can’t take a little bit of nose trauma.”

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  I pulled his arms higher up, closer to his shoulder blades, and head-butted the back of his head with my forehead. “Listen fuck face, the next words out of your mouth better be something that I want to hear, or they’re going to be the last words you ever speak. I’ve already shown you that I can kill you with one squeeze, and you’ve already shown me that you’re not tough enough to fight me and keep me from doing it, so you’ve got no other choice. You talk or you die. Those are your choices. Of course if I were you, I’d probably want to die from the embarrassment of a girl half my size kicking my ass, but that’s just me.”

  I looked to my right and saw his gun on the ground. I’d neutralized his gun so quickly that it immediately became an afterthought. That didn’t mean I could forget about it though. That’s how people end up dead. I dragged Aviator Man by his wrists, walked over to the gun, and kicked it across the ground until it rested against the concrete planter, out of his reach, but within my gaze.

  “Now, you’re going to tell me who sent you to kill me and why.” I paused for a moment and Aviator Man said nothing. I pressed my knee against the small of his back, took one of his wrists in each of my hands, and pulled them back toward me, exerting pressure on his chest, shoulders and back. A slight change in the angle at which I was pulling his arms and I could dislocate both of his shoulders, but he struck me as a whiner, and I wasn’t in the mood for it, so I left his joints in tact.

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me,” I said. “Let me repeat myself. Who sent you to kill me, and why did they send you? Do you work for them, or are you just a hired gun? Who else is coming for me?”

  Aviator Man said nothing. I leaned my body closer to his, lowered his arms to release some of the pressure, and spoke in a soft whisper. “This is your last chance, fuck face. If you don’t start talking then you’re about to witness your own death. And once that starts, it’s too late. There’s nothing I can do about it. There’s nothing anyone can do about it. The deed is done. So one last time, who sent you?”

  I held his hands in mine and waited. He moaned once as I bent his wrists, and then said, “Fuck you, Mia. You don’t have it in you to kill me.”

  “Holy fuck!” I said. “You poor soul. They didn’t even tell you who they were sending you to kill. You don’t even know. Of course, if you knew, then you probably wouldn’t have accepted the job. Because if they told you who I was—I don’t mean just Mia Mathis, I mean who I really am—then you would have known that by coming after me you signed your own death certificate. But you caught me on a good day. It’s nice outside, my run was going well, I’m happy. So here I am, offering you a chance to save your own life, but you’ve gone and fucked it up. You shouldn’t have taken this job, Aviator Man. They roped you into something you didn’t even understand. ‘Just kill the petite brunette who’s running along the lakefront.’ Is that what they told you? You poor soul. Golly fuck, it’s your unlucky day.”

  I let go of his hands, spun him around, and grabbed him by the throat again. In the distance I heard sirens, but they seemed to be moving farther away, not closer. Two men on the path were jogging toward us, but they seemed oblivious to my current situation. The task at hand was a quick, quiet one, so I wasn’t worried about attracting attention, but I still preferred not to have an audience.

  “One last time, are you going to tell me what I want to know? Nod if you’re smart.” I relaxed the pressure ever so slightly, but instead of nodding, Aviator Man spat in my face and mouthed the words, “You’re weak.”

  I shook my head and smiled at him as I moved my fingers a few centimeters higher on his throat. “Listen for the pop,” I said, and then used my thumb and index fingers to crush his cricoid.

  The shattering of that particular piece of cartilage brings with it a flood of doom, and Aviator Man was no different. His mouth gaped as he struggled for air and the realization of what I’d just done washed over him. “I told you,” I said, as I let go of his throat, grabbed him around his waist, and put his left arm around my shoulder. “Let’s walk over here.”

  I half-carried him as he stumbled along the path, gasping for air. To passersby I would have looked like the unfortunate girl helping her drunk boyfriend.

  I led Aviator Man to a grassy hill behind the path, lowered him to the ground and told him to lay on his back. “Don’t fight it,” I said. “Just close your eyes. It won’t take long.” I sat on the ground next to him, my knees pulled up to my chest. I listened to Aviator Man gasp for air as I stared off into the lake. He took one last swipe at me and punched me in the kidneys, but a dying man can’t inflict much pain, so it barely hurt. I didn’t retaliate. I simply looked at him, said “Stop,” and turned back toward the lake.

  A few minutes later Aviator Man was still. I removed the light jacket he’d worn, despite the hot temperature. He must have used it to conceal his weapon before trying to kill me. I bunched the jacket into a ball, and put it beneath his head, and folded his hands on his chest. Then I lay back next to him. We appeared to be two people enjoying the warm summer sun.

  After fifteen minutes, I stood up and walked away. Eventually, someone would find Aviator Man.

  And eventually, someone would find me.

  2r />
  Chapter 2

  A fresh coat of black paint helped camouflage the large steel door against the wall of grimy brick. Not that camouflage was necessary. The door’s location—halfway down a narrow alley, just beyond a five-feet-wide by ten-feet-tall brick wall that jutted out into the alley, perpendicular to the building—helped hide the door. And the building itself, a non-descript four-story cube, situated just north of the row of new restaurants in the West Loop, and within earshot of the El, and unassuming enough to appear as if it were just another old warehouse building waiting to be saved from decay by an enterprising developer, helped make sure that no uninvited visitors made their way to the door. Even if some ruffian found the door, there’d be little chance he could enter. It appeared to open only from the inside, with no handle on the outside. Instead, a small rectangular hole in the door provided a place to insert a custom-made metal bar that acted both as a key and a handle, allowing access to the building beyond.

  When I left Aviator Man I immediately ran to the Roost, as it had come to be known by those who sought it as a safe haven. As I ran, I looked over my shoulder, not to see if Aviator Man was following me—he’d wouldn’t follow anyone anywhere ever again—but rather to see if anyone else picked up his slack. Anyone who hired someone to kill me probably wouldn’t hesitate to hire a backup as well. I’d operate on the assumption that I had a target on my forehead until I found out who was after me.

  Inside the door a steep set of stairs led up to the second floor. Earlier in the building’s history the stairs continued to the third and fourth floors, but The Summit had long ago sealed off that part of the building so the stairs, and the black steel door outside, led only to the Roost and to nothing else.

  At the top of the stairs a custom-made wooden door made of alternating two-inch-wide and six-inch-thick pieces of oak and walnut wood provided another barrier to entry. No special key was required to open that door though. A simple door knob, unlocked, kept it closed.