Turning his body to the side, he used the left arm as a cover, firing off a right cross that drew nothing but air, following it up closely with another.
Easily ducking both, Davis bounced light on the balls of her feet. Waiting for a third one to come in, she paused until it was just inches from her face before throwing a hard right hook, her goal not his face or even his body, but the outstretched hand in front of her.
It was the first time she’d ever thrown such a punch, catching him just short of the wrist, the thick metal connecting solidly with the protruding bump of his ulnar bone.
Under normal conditions, she would have whiffed. If he’d had both hands, or even reasonable balance on two good feet, it would have been an easy dodge. Just one of several early feelers, both sides getting to know the other.
In this instance, it was more than enough to catch him, doing exactly what she hoped it would.
On contact, the bone gave way with a satisfying crack, a matching sound sliding from the man’s throat as his arm fell limp, the lower half jutting off at an obtuse angle.
The instant it did, Davis slid in closer, rattling off a jab-cross combo, a quick one-two, snapping the man’s head back.
Blood spurted from his left nostril and his top lip, his skin no match for the molded metal grips.
Even at that, he took both with a grim expression, his anger visible at the situation, at his body failing him now, in the worst of possible moments.
Caring not at all, Davis continued to move forward, to not let his backward momentum widen the gap between them, shooting out a hard left followed by a right uppercut.
The left barely grazed him, a glancing blow that would have missed entirely if not for the extra reach of the brass knuckles.
But it served as just enough to leave him open for the uppercut, a shot that connected square beneath his jaw. Feeling the impact with the bone, Davis drove her fist upward, the follow through lifting the man from his feet.
In one unending curve, his body twisted up and away from her, landing in a heap.
Standing there, looking down at him, her first impulse was to rush forward. To continue with the brass knuckles, mashing his face, his head, his body, into a pulp.
Beating out every ounce of frustration that she had carried over the past years.
Even if she never knew who actually killed her father, this man was a close enough approximation, a symbol for Baxter and his enterprise.
Just as fast, she let that realization settle in.
Baxter.
As good as it would feel to end this man with her fists, to put all that time in the basement with the punching bag to good use, it would only detract from the real reason she was there at the moment.
From a reason so much bigger than just she and her family.
Vic Baxter had to be stopped.
Leaving the man where he lay, Davis turned her attention to the side. Kicking aside a pair of tires, she traced her gaze over the ground, finally finding what she was looking for having slid up flush against the block supporting the body of the car the man had been hiding behind.
Working the brass knuckles from her hands, she snatched up the Glock, turning back, ready to face the man, to finish him and move upstairs to their real target.
Turning just in time to see Tim step up to the man, take aim, and fire.
In the wake of the shot, the smell of gunpowder was thick in the air, a tendril of smoke rising from the tip of Tim’s Beretta. Her eyes bulging, Davis looked between the weapon and the man lying on the floor before it, his forehead caved in from the round fired at close range, the glossy pool of blood spreading in an even circle beneath him.
With no friction from the smooth floor, it flowed fast and even, leaving no doubt as to the man’s fate.
For an instant, there were no words, the adrenaline of the moment still surging through Davis’s system. With her mouth sagging open, she tried to find the proper response, grasping for the right words.
“Wha...” she managed. “What did you do?”
With the weapon still extended before him, Tim turned his chin over a shoulder toward her.
“You’re welcome.”
At the sound of his voice, the previous concentration she held, the focus aimed solely at her opponent, bled away. In its place, incredulity seeped in, the gun dropping a few inches by her side.
“I’m welcome?!” she snapped. “This was over. I had him. All I had to do was-“
“That’s not what I mean.”
Chapter Eighty-Nine
“Cut the lights,” Deputy Marshal Abby Lipski barked. Perched on the front edge of the passenger seat, her weight balanced precariously, she could feel her heartbeat thundering in her chest. Alternating glances between the road and the GPS on the dash, she said, “Cut the lights, damn it!”
Beside her, Marshal Colvin looked over twice, his face pale, the look accented by the fact that with the arrival of nightfall he had finally removed the ridiculous dark glasses he’d been wearing since they met.
“Now!” Lipski screamed, a hint of shrill creeping in, sending the sound reverberating through the car.
Visibly flinching, Colvin jerked his attention back to the road, reaching out and flipping off the front lamps.
The moment he did so, all extraneous illumination bled away, the moonlight and a handful of sporadic reflector strips the sole things guiding them.
On either side, the forest pushed in hard, creating a clear tunnel, a direct line toward their destination just over a mile in the distance.
The drive down from Tennessee had been hard, every minute of it spent imploring Colvin to go faster, yelling at drivers that didn’t heed their sirens or lights, lingering too long before drifting to the side.
In between, Lipski fielded calls from her team in the air, updating them on their position, conglomerating as much information as possible about their destination.
The call from Director Knoth she let go to voicemail, knowing avoiding him would annoy the man to no end, but not ready to speak with him just yet.
With any luck, the events of the next couple of hours would exonerate her, or at the very least provide some of the answers she knew he was calling in search of.
Until then, the blowhard bastard would have to wait like everybody else.
“You guys good?” Lipski asked, twisting her head to peer at Marshals Burrows and Marlucci in the backseat. Both already strapped into Kevlar vests with the U.S. Marshal logo imprinted on the front, Burrows gave a terse nod, mouth drawn into a straight line.
His cohort, meanwhile, looked like there was a decent chance she might start hyperventilating at any moment, her visage every bit as pale as Colvin’s.
Not exactly what Lipski would deem the A-team, but for the time being, it was all she had.
Turning back to face forward, she drew her sidearm and racked a round into the chamber, the sound of it as loud as a shot within the confines of the SUV. Pressing the barrel tight against her thigh, she used her off hand to brace herself, continuing to alternate her gaze.
Ahead, the faint glow of a structure could be seen, just barely peeking above the treetops.
“Faster,” she whispered, an extension of the same mantra she’d been muttering for what seemed days now.
Tim Scarberry was a pain in the ass, but this was far beyond that at this point. Years before, she had sworn an oath to the Marshal Service, had opted to dedicate her life to protecting those that went out on a limb to help others.
For the first time, that oath was being put to serious question. If ever she was going to continue forward with her career, be able to truly believe in herself or the mission of the agency she worked for, she had to see this through.
One way or another, the quest that started with a phone call days before was about to reach a conclusion.
She just had to make sure she was there in time.
“Faster.”
Chapter Ninety
Sitting with his back to th
e windows, Vic Baxter couldn’t see exactly what was going on below, but he could hear every bit of it in excruciating detail. Tucked up tight against the bottom of his desk, he was using the heavy wooden implement as a blockade, his rolling chair pulled over far enough to cover the bottom half of him.
The jolt of electricity that had surged through his body the moment that damned car had first driven into his shop had only grown with each passing second, jumping multiple steps when the vehicle exploded, a few more when automatic fire sprayed the interior of the building, shattering the windows lining the back end of his office.
Since then, he had been sequestered beneath his desk, waiting.
Down below were two of the most capable men he had ever known. One handpicked by himself, the other his brother before him, nothing short of an army could get through them.
Trusting that Scarberry would have no such thing at his disposal, he knew that all he needed to do was sit and wait for the all-clear sign, the spates of sporadic fire below bringing a thin smile to his face.
Most of the evening, he had sat behind his desk, wondering if he had done the right thing. If he should have brought in more men, turned the place into a veritable bunker, dared someone to come near him.
The decision against it was steeped in the same reasons he hadn’t sent more people to Tennessee, the very same thing his brother had tried to drill into him repeatedly.
Nothing – not even snuffing out Scarberry – was worth drawing attention to the operation.
Worst case, things didn’t go their way, Eric was forced to wait another couple of years.
A small price compared to having to rebuild the business from the ground up.
Abiding by that maxim, he had spent the night counting minutes, pacing across the floor of his office, beating himself up for not having brought in reinforcements. Men like the boys earlier, easily disposable, people that would at the very least serve as tripping points for whoever might enter.
Having learned his lesson, he forced the notion from his mind, knowing that most people – even those as expendable as the boys earlier – had friends or families or someone that would notice their absence.
Might even start asking questions.
That was an eventuality that could quickly spiral out of control, leaving Baxter with only the choice of handing the situation to the two best people he knew for the task.
Even now, pulled down low beneath the heavy wooden desk that had served as the hub of the business for years, the thought brought a smile to his face.
Sitting low behind it, he cocked his head to the side, listening, waiting for any of the telltale signs of a fight raging below. Hearing nothing, he used a heel to nudge the desk chair away from himself, the wheels shoving aside shards of glass as it slid away.
Once he had an opening of a few feet, he rolled his weight up onto his knees, raising himself up so his face was level with the desktop.
The smile on his face grew a bit wider as the Winchester 30.06 he’d had balanced there all evening came into view, the walnut stock gleaming beneath the one overhead light in the office blazing strong.
Sliding a hand out, he pulled it over to himself, checking the chamber before gripping it across his chest.
Rising to his feet, he crept over to the windows, peering over the edge to the world he’d built below.
Epilogue
Chapter Ninety
I sensed her long before I saw her, though to be fair, the her I thought I heard coming my way turned out to be the wrong person.
Standing on the edge of the small clearing not far from Uncle Jep’s cabin, well within the confines of the sprawling stretch of land I now owned, I could hear the sound of brittle leaves and tall grass crunching underfoot. Given that the footfalls were all I heard and not the loud thrashing of someone kicking their way through, I knew instantly that it was a woman.
Even more so because there wasn’t a man alive that I could think of that might be approaching.
With my hands thrust down into the front pockets of my jeans, I didn’t bother turning around, simply standing over the simple gravestone that had been placed the day before, a fresh mound of dirt rising before it.
To the side rested the shovel I had just finished using a few minutes before, telltale smudges of dirt and sweat still outlining my exposed arms and face.
Keeping a steady pace, the steps continued until they drew even with me, Lou showing up in my periphery, the stray beams of sun that managed to make it through the thick forest canopy above reflecting off her glossy black hair.
“Nice place,” she opened, raising her attention to the trees, swinging it in a wide arc to take in our surroundings.
The clearing was one Uncle Jep had made himself well before I was born. Legend told that it in another time it had held the hammock his wife loved to sit and read in, a final labor of love for his departed beloved.
Knowing Uncle Jep the way I did, I found it hard to believe that he would be that sentimental.
I also knew he despised hyperbole, would not stand for a story to be out there that wasn’t one hundred percent true.
“Thanks for coming by,” I said.
Nodding her head just slightly, she said, “I remember when my dad passed, damn near the entire reservation showed up. Must have been hundreds of people, but it seemed like thousands.”
Falling short, she again glanced up, her eyes clouding slightly, as if she were in a different place.
I knew the feeling.
“Sounds miserable.”
“It was,” she whispered.
Looking down to the simple stone before me, to the man that had meant so much to me finally lying beside the woman that had meant so much to him, I could imagine he would have said the same exact thing.
“How’s the arm?” I asked.
Nudging her shoulder out slightly, Lou glanced down to it, a simple white bandage covering it, a lone pale outlier against her tan skin.
“It’s healing. Not working out on the punching bag quite yet, but give me a couple of days.”
Having seen what she could do with her fists in Baxter’s warehouse, I had no doubt it wouldn’t even take that long.
Someone didn’t get that kind of skill without some serious dedication to their craft.
“The leg?” she asked.
“Healing,” I said, parroting the word she had used a moment before.
To be honest, it ached like hell, and digging Uncle Jep’s plot was quite possibly the hardest thing I’d ever done, something that would not have been possible without my new friend codeine.
But it wasn’t like I wasn’t going to give him that one final respect, even if it killed me.
“How’d it go at the office?” I asked.
Reaching behind her, Lou hooked her thumbs into the back pockets of her jeans, the posture thrusting her shoulders out, accentuating her collarbones beneath the black tank top she wore.
Snorting, she raised her eyebrows, glancing my way. “Well, it went.”
“Meaning?”
Sighing, she said, “Meaning, Charbonneau rescinded firing me, what with the way everything played out and whatnot, but for the time being I’m on administrative leave.”
Not even pretending to know what exactly the back end meant, I remained silent, letting her get to it in her own time.
The first part, I was reasonably certain of already, the whole bringing-down-a-wanted-arms-dealer thing and the heaps of media exposure and federal agency presence that had followed in its wake making it pretty difficult for the department to fire the woman spearheading it.
Especially since I had all but disappeared afterward, readily handing over every bit of attention that came along, my role in this incident almost mirroring what had happened in my first encounter with the Baxters.
“Whether that means I’ll actually go back,” Lou said, “I haven’t decided yet.”
Knowing exactly what she meant this time too, I responded only with a raising of my eyebro
ws.
“What’s with the chess piece?” she asked, motioning with her chin toward the queen I had first found in Uncle Jep’s bedroom a few days earlier now resting atop his gravestone.
“You still pissed at me?” I asked.
Flicking her attention my way once more, the corner of Lou’s mouth moved upward, the closest thing to a genuine smile I’d seen since we were fifteen years old.
“Naw,” she said, “that was just the adrenaline talking.”
In the moment, the few seconds after I had finished the man we now knew to be Radney Creel, the adrenaline had done plenty of talking, accusing me of everything she could think of, lashing out with a venom I didn’t know she possessed.
“I get it now,” she said, continuing to look my way, “why you did what you did.”
The odds were, she would probably never know exactly why I did it. Just so long as she knew it wasn’t a lack of respect, or thinking she could handle it, or any of the other assorted cowboy shit she had warned me about before stepping out of the car that night.
For years, she had been forced to live with what happened to her father, having that hang over her head, coloring everything she did – from the home she lived in to the job she now held.
If she had ended that man, it would have never subsided for her.
I had been carrying around a similar feeling for more than six years. I’d be damned if I was going to levy it on anybody else.
“So what’s your plan from here?” she asked, nudging our conversation back on course, looking toward the fresh grave before us.
Smirking slightly, just loud enough for her to hear me, I blew out a long sigh.
“After I finish up here? I go back and shower, then take one extremely long and uncomfortable ride back to Portland with Deputy Marshal Lipski and her team on their private plane.”
Wincing sharply, Lou’s first response was, “Eek.” Taking a moment, she added, “Yeah, I can see how that would be uncomfortable, literally and figuratively.”
The Subway Page 30
