Free Determinant by E. H. Reinhard

the smaller one said.
    “Then you’ll be first.”
    Ray aimed the gun at his forehead. The man knelt five feet away. Ray pulled the trigger, panned left, and pulled again. The sound of the two shots was ear shattering. The noise echoed from wall to wall of the small room. As deafening as the sound was, the cooler would insulate the noise. The sound wouldn’t escape far from the building.
    Red mist hung in the air. A spray of red soaked the white buckets sitting on the shelves. Chunks of flesh and brains rolled down the back wall. The two men’s lifeless bodies had collapsed to the floor.
    Ray took two more steps into the freezer and put another shot, center mass, into each man. His ears rang. Ray picked the four shell casings from the freezer floor and pulled the handle to exit.
    Ray searched the corners of the room for cameras. He spotted nothing.
    He held the pistol at his hip and cracked open the back door. There were no sounds of sirens. The alley was empty. Ray walked out. He holstered the pistol, pulled off the pantyhose mask and took a roundabout way back to the car.

Chapter 11
    My phone chirped and vibrated across the nightstand next to my bed. I reached over with my right hand, picked it up and brought it in front of my face. My left hand dug into my eyes for a hard rub. My vision began to clear. The noise wasn’t my alarm. I looked at the time: 7:06 a.m. I had a missed call and voicemail from my ex-wife.
    We’d only spoken once or twice since she was released from the hospital. Those conversations consisted of me trying to apologize, and her saying she never wanted to speak to me again. My sister Melissa provided me with the occasional update on her health. From what Melissa said, Samantha had made a full recovery from the lobotomy attempt and had gone back to work.
    I tapped the button to listen to the message.
    Carl, I figured I’d try you before work. We should talk about some things. I’m having these weird feelings. I just want to talk. Please call me back.
    I hit delete. I didn’t know what to make of it.
    Callie rolled over in bed behind me. She threw her arm over my side. “Who was that? Work?”
    I weighed my options to answer her question. It was simple, either lie or tell the truth. I knew what the outcome of each response would be. There would be a talk about feelings and my ex-wife if I remained honest. If I lied about the call, I’d feel guilty and end up telling her the truth anyway. That would lead to an argument about lying, followed by the same talk about feelings and my ex-wife. I was screwed. “Samantha for some reason.”
    Callie sat up in bed.
    Damn, I should have lied.
    “Your ex-wife?”
    I nodded my head. “Yeah.”
    Callie scooted her back up against the headboard and looked over at me. The expression on her face wasn’t one I had seen before. It was anger or worry. “What did she want?”
    I shook my head and made my best I don’t care face .
    “Well, what did she say?” Her tone said she didn’t plan on dropping the topic.
    “She said she wanted to talk about something.”
    As the words came from my mouth the look on Callie’s face changed—it was worry. I tried to find some magic words to diffuse the situation. I came up blank.
    “Are you going to call her back?”
    “Yeah, I guess I should find out what she wanted.”
    Callie got up and walked from the bedroom without saying anything. She closed the door behind her. After ten minutes, she still hadn’t come back. I got up, put on my clothes and walked out to find her. She sat on the living room couch with Butch in her arms. I walked over and sat next to her. Asking her what was wrong seemed like a stupid idea, but I did anyway.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “What do you think is wrong?”
    “I’m sorry, I can’t control who calls my phone. I mean, it’s not like I called her asking to talk.”
    Callie’s eyes darted over at me and she let out an angry breath through her nose. My logic had no place in this time