Free Callie's Last Dance (a Donovan Creed Novel) by John Locke Page B

eyes so she can wipe them. She does, but when he opens them again, he sees her holding a medicine dropper above his left eye. Before he can blink, she squirts something in his eye that makes him shriek in pain.
    “That’s what it feels like in your eyes,” she says. “In liquid form.”
    He blinks his eyes and shakes his head from side to side in super speed, like an old cartoon character in distress.
    “AHH! AHH! AHH!” he yells, reminding her of a guy she interrogated years ago, before she began packing torture kits in her backpack. That day she boiled a pot of water and poured it on his bare skin a cup at a time. He made this same sound, Ahh! Ahh! Ahh!
    When Frankie stops shaking his head he focuses his good eye on the medicine dropper, unaware of what’s in Callie’s left hand.
    A second swab of cheesecloth.
    The center of which she stuffs in his mouth.
    She holds her left hand over his lips to keep it in place.
    Frankie makes a moaning sound.
    Callie says, “You’re bluffing. You can’t feel the heat this time. Not yet, anyway. But give it another fifteen seconds and see how you feel. While we wait, I’ll tell you that what’s in your mouth is a Bhut Jolokia pepper, which, only a few years ago, was considered the hottest pepper in the world. DNA tests confirmed it’s an interspecies hybrid of Capsicum chinense and frutescens genes.”
    The involuntary spasms contorting Frankie’s body tell her he’s begun to feel the heat.
    She squirts some in his right eye, saying, “This little baby packs one million Scoville heat units. Can you believe it?”
    He can.
    Frankie shrieks like a wounded wolverine. His body feels like it’s shutting down.
    Callie removes the cheesecloth from his mouth.
    After a full minute of blubbering, he forms the words, “Wh-what do you w-want ?»»You know what really pisses me off?” she says. “You haven’t even bothered to ask about your wife.”
    “Wh-what have y-you…wh-what’s h-happened to An-An-Angie?” he sputters.
    “She’s resting quietly,” Callie says. “Thanks for asking.”
    “P-please,” he says. “S-Stop!”
    “Frankie, listen to me. In a few minutes I’m going to ask you some questions. You’ll want to answer them because I’ve got lots of these vials, and trust me, some are particularly nasty.”
    A few feet away, on the laundry room floor, Digby starts twitching. Callie shakes her head and says, “Your dog is getting on my nerves.”
    She removes the syringe from her backpack and gives Digby another dose. Then puts it up and gets another length of cheesecloth and says, “Open your mouth, Frankie.”
    “N-no! Ask y-your qu-questions. I’ll tell you wh-whatever you w-want to know.”
    “Not yet. You need to know how bad this can get. Will you open your mouth for me? Or no?”
    He shakes his head.
    “I figured you’d say that.”
    She removes a can of lighter fluid from her backpack and a long-stemmed lighter. Squirts the fluid on his crotch and sets his pants on fire.
    When he opens his mouth to scream she stuffs another swatch of cheesecloth in it. He bucks his body up and down and twists from side to side. Tries to spit the cloth out, but his lips, mouth, and tongue won’t cooperate. They’re blistered and raw.
    “I’m going to let your pants burn for a minute, Frankie, while I tell you about the Naga Viper. This is an unstable hybrid of three peppers. A devil’s trifecta, if you will.”
    She squirts some in his left eye and he begins speaking in tongues.
    “This one registers one-point-four million heat units.”
    She notices he’s wet his pants.
    “You put the fire out all by yourself!” she says. “That was really clever.”
    Callie feels her cell phone vibrating softly in her pants pocket. She opens it, reads the text message. Call me. Midnight?
    She smiles, texts “Yes,” closes the phone, puts it back in her pocket. Then she unbuckles Frankie’s belt, pulls his smoldering pants and boxers down to his knees.
    She says,