The Promisor: A Suspense Thriller

by Dustin Stevens

  “Grandma was watching it earlier,” Deke replied. “Nothing about Gallipolis, just a whole bunch about that thing over in Newark, which looked gnarly.”

  “It was,” Reed said, taking a hulking bite off the end of a taco. Shredded beef along with onions and cilantro, a combination that was nothing short of divine as he chewed and swallowed.

  “You’re on that one now, too?” Deke asked, his eyebrows rising.

  “Same shooter,” Reed replied, resisting the urge to immediately dive in for more of the taco. “Which is why we’re here. I was hoping you might be able to run down our two victims, see if you can find anything connecting them.”

  For a moment, Deke’s lips parted slightly as his eyes widened. A flat stare he held as he worked through what was just shared, in short order pushing through a sequence that had taken Reed hours to process.

  Time since Billie picked up the scent outside of the picnic area, confirming what he’d started to suspect even well before that.

  A series of thoughts and emotions he’d rather not return to, there being plenty of time to question their approach once they found whoever was targeting people throughout the state.

  “Damn,” Deke whispered.

  “Worse than that,” Reed replied.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  The food had done wonders for Reed’s physical state, though any benefit it might have brought about was matched on the opposite end by the frustration of the information – or complete lack thereof – that Deke was able to unearth. A meandering search through every permutation of how Avery Lawson could be connected to Cara Salem or her brother, each and every one coming up empty.

  A man that was the definition of a basic suburbanite. Middle-age, middle-income, with a solid but completely unremarkable job and no obvious red flags in his history. The only thing Reed had momentarily thought might be something was the home he lived in. An extraordinarily nice house not in line with his career title that it turned out had been bequeathed to him upon the passing of his parents a year prior.

  The loss of his folks notwithstanding, Lawson embodied the proverbial American dream. Someone that had worked hard and made good decisions, on the cusp of becoming a father himself.

  Damned sure not the kind of person that deserved to be gunned down standing in his own bathroom.

  Able to keep the mental images of that very thing at bay long enough to complete a hasty dinner of assorted tacos, the instant he and Deke began digging through the man’s life, the snapshots returned in a rush. A flurry of pictures scrolling by one after another with increasing frequency, each subsequent one zoomed in a bit further, the color saturation a little higher.

  A slideshow that seemed to be feeding off his growing agitation, threatening to consume his thoughts by the time they finished their search an hour later and he took his leave. A feeling that had only waned slightly in the time since. Twenty minutes spent driving back home, he and Billie not even making it through the back door before his cellphone sprang to life.

  “Hey there,” Reed said. His phone switched to speaker, he held it out before him as he stood on the back deck behind his home. The glowing face of it shining bright in the near darkness, he stared out into his yard, able to pick up the occasional bit of movement or flash of pink.

  Signs of his partner out doing what she needed to, exhaustion tamping down any interest in the assorted smells or wildlife lurking nearby.

  A state Reed shared entirely, hoping that the sheer exhaustion he felt would be enough to allow his mind to shut off for a few hours of needed rest.

  “Sorry if I woke you, I didn’t want to call so late two nights in a row.”

  “You didn’t,” Sheriff Meigs replied. “Haven’t exactly been sleeping much this week, so I saw the phone light up when your text came in.”

  Pausing there just an instant to intimate a clean break from the initial back-and-forth, she said, “Okay, walk me through this. Cara Salem’s murder is now part of a string?”

  The thought that Reed should send a text to Meigs had occurred to him on the way home. Something that he’d initially planned to let go until morning before a random thought occurred to him. An outcropping of an idea he’d had Deke look into the day before that fell outside the realm of a check-in offered for professional courtesy, more of a direct request for assistance.

  A question he wanted her to bounce off Harrison Salem when she could.

  The sort of thing much better handled in person than if he merely cold called the man early in the morning.

  Sending her the message while it was fresh in his mind, Reed hadn’t expected her to even see it for another six hours or more, much less to respond.

  In no way wanting to go through the entire events of the evening yet again, Reed forced himself to do just that. A quick overview since they last spoke, hitting the high points of his discussion with Aquino and his meeting with DMick before being called to Grimes’s office with news of Lawson’s murder.

  Rattling things off in short order, he managed to get through it all in just under five minutes flat. A full sprint that left him nearly breathless by the time he finished.

  A mass of information that Meigs then took another couple of minutes to wade through, processing in silence before eventually asking, “So it sounds now like Aquino maybe wasn’t the big reveal after all.”

  Not sure if it was a question or a statement or merely thinking out loud, Reed responded, “Starting to look that way.”

  “Hm,” Meigs replied. “And if that’s the case, then that leaves us with...?”

  Sighing loudly, Reed raised his free hand to his face. Passing it several times over his features, he dropped it back to his side, pops of light flashing before him.

  A momentary loss of vision that meant he heard Billie make her way up the wooden steps nearby, her weight thumping against the board, rather than saw her.

  “That’s what I’m going back to Newark to work on first thing in the morning,” Reed said. “And I was actually hoping I could get your help on something down there in the meantime.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Can you track down Harrison in the morning and ask him if he knows or has ever heard of an Avery Lawson? My tech guy couldn’t find any connection between him and Cara, but maybe Harrison can recall something that wasn’t showing up in the system.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  The first stray shafts of daylight were still more than an hour away as The Promisor pulled up. An early arrival predicated both on his inability to sleep and the need to get a start on the day.

  A precise schedule coupled with the news report he watched the night before. Primetime coverage of the things he’d been doing and the increased scrutiny he was under.

  Potential obstacles that alone wouldn’t bother him, if not for the last thing he’d noticed just before turning off the television. A singular image that had settled at the front of his mind, lingering as he stoked the fire to life beside him and fed in every last document pertaining to Avery Lawson and the remaining two targets.

  A process that wasn’t nearly as cathartic or cleansing as the previous time, his mind unable to let go of what it had just seen. A fixation bordering on obsession as he tried to play things out in his mind.

  If not for the small tear in the leg of the camouflage pants, the odds were good that The Promisor would have not thought twice about the K-9 team exiting the Lawson house. If he would have noticed them at all, it would have been as nothing more than a passing glance.

  Perhaps enough to even evoke a smirk at them trying to use a tracking animal at a site that he never came within two hundred yards of, an entire highway separating the place where the shot was fired from where it ultimately hit.

  Painfully aware of the error that he’d made down in Gallipolis though, he couldn’t shake the thought that something bearing his scent was out there. A tiny scrap that could have been found on the neighboring hillside, used to both track his exit that day and to find his shooter’
s nest used on the far side of the ravine from Lawson’s.

  An outcome that The Promisor knew was remote at best, but still had to give proper consideration. A looming threat that sped up his timetable even more than he originally thought, the need to finish the mission far surpassing all else.

  A fulfillment of his last promise, allowing The Promisor to accept whatever came thereafter.

  Parked in the same exact spot as two days prior, The Promisor closed the door of the truck just far enough for the latch to catch. A way to extinguish the light within the cab without creating too much noise, despite being miles from the closest home.

  Further still from the nearest town, the small cemetery specifically requested by his wife before her passing because of its remote location.

  Crossing from the gravel onto the thick grass lining it, The Promisor walked the path through pure muscle memory. Practiced steps that he was able to take without need of light or guidance, deftly slipping through the gate and past the headstones.

  A route he’d traveled hundreds of times before, knowing it as well as the interior of his own home.

  A home he’d taken a few extra precautions to fortify before leaving this morning, having a feeling they may be needed before this was all finished. Measures he’d toyed with in the beginning, the events of recent days having pushed them to the level of becoming necessity.

  “Hey, honey,” he whispered. “Love you. Miss you.”

  Curling his right hand into a fist, he raised it to his lips. Holding it there a moment, he lowered it to the arched top of the headstone before him, placing his palm flat atop it.

  Allowing the cool of it to pass into his hand, he stood there, bent forward at the waist for the better part of a minute, before eventually rising to full height and stepping back.

  “I came to tell you that part two is done,” he said. “We’re halfway there.”

  So long, he had wanted to say such words. Months on end, he had waited for the exact opportune moment to begin. The time when his preparation was complete and he could finally proceed.

  A daily chore in denying himself what he so craved. The absolution that could only come in finally fulfilling the promise that he’d made.

  “As soon as I leave here, I’m taking off to get in position for the third one,” he added.

  Raising his gaze, he stared off across the tops of the foot-tall cornstalks. A view that was swallowed by the darkness around him, not a single light to pierce the inky veil.

  “I doubt I’ll be able to swing back when it’s done, so you probably won’t see me again until this is all over.”

  Bending forward once more, The Promisor placed his hand back atop the grave marker. A means of drawing strength, using it for the day ahead.

  A marathon session bringing to completion all that he had planned. Months of exacting research and analysis.

  Final atonement for a promise broken and another made to fix it.

  Standing there, so badly The Promisor wanted to look to the left. Just a small turn of his head, taking in the most recent addition to the cemetery. A headstone decades younger than any of the others, placed there just months before.

  A glance that he would not, could not, allow himself. Not just yet. Not with so much still left to do, no matter how much might have already been accomplished.

  A privilege that he had not earned, his final promise yet to be fulfilled.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  The taste of Mountain Dew rested on Reed Mattox’s tongue as he stepped inside the Newark Police Department. Long a devout denier of all things coffee, the number of times he had been forced to succumb to the caffeinated sludge could be counted on one hand.

  A depth of exhaustion that he wasn’t quite down to yet, though he admittedly could feel the effects of the last couple of days beginning to wear on him. A flailing rush across most of the southeastern quadrant of the state with no clear sign of stoppage on the horizon.

  A poor harbinger of what he could expect in his new role under Governor Cowan’s office.

  Bypassing the fresh coffee in enormous metal urns along the wall and canned Starbucks offerings in the cooler in the rear of the 7-11 near his home, he had opted for another liter of Mountain Dew. A bottle much larger than what he’d picked up in Gallipolis on the way out of town the previous morning, the entire thing gone by the time he and Billie reached their destination.

  Thirty-four ounces of carbonation and acidic syrup he could feel sloshing around in his stomach, adding to the assortment of feelings and emotions he already had permeating through him. A potent enough combination in their own right to have kept him up most of the night staring at the ceiling, Billie abandoning her usual post under the kitchen table to stand vigil at the foot of the bed.

  A pairing that now had his nerves stretched taut, his entire body thrumming on the potent cocktail.

  “Good morning,” a young officer that looked vaguely familiar greeted them as they stepped forward to the front desk on the back end of the foyer. A clear divider meant to act as a screening station, keeping visitors from stepping inside and heading directly into the heart of the building.

  A place that this morning seemed to be abuzz with activity, people darting back and forth across the long hallway extended directly out behind the desk.

  “Good morning,” Reed replied. “Detectives Mattox and Billie, State BCI. We’re working the Lawson case with Detective McKeon.”

  “Oh, right, right,” the officer replied. Dark eyes widening, he bobbed his head vigorously, tufts of matching hair shifting across his forehead. “I saw you yesterday, at the house.”

  The instant the young man referred to it, his face popped into place in Reed’s mind.

  “Yeah, you were on the other end of the partition from Officer Dianason, that let us through, right?”

  “That’s me,” the young man said, raising a hand and pointing to the nameplate affixed to his chest. “Conkle. Good to meet you both.”

  “You as well.”

  Hooking a thumb, Conkle gestured over his shoulder. “Ms. Lawson hasn’t arrived yet. Detective McKeon is waiting in his office for you guys, though. Third door down on your left.”

  “Thank you,” Reed said before leading Billie around the side of the desk and down the center of the hallway. A lane bisecting the building with doorways standing open on either side. Office spaces with names and titles stenciled onto the glass, beginning with Chief Prentiss and working on down through the hierarchy from there.

  A quick descent along the office structure spanning just over sixty feet before placing them outside McKeon’s office. A space that was much too large for the Spartan furnishings inside it, the standard collection of a desk and chairs and bookcase on display, though little else.

  No personal photographs or knickknacks of any kind. No books or plants on the shelves.

  Nothing but a few stacks of file boxes in random places and an aging computer atop the desk. A look that most would misconstrue as someone just moving in, whereas Reed saw it for what it more likely was.

  The assigned office of a detective that would rather be anywhere else, a sentiment they both shared.

  “Morning,” Reed said, tapping a knuckle against the metal doorframe. A sound just loud enough to pull McKeon’s attention away from the computer screen before him, the pale glow of it falling across his face. Illumination highlighting his features, giving the strong impression that his night had been even shorter than Reed’s.

  A supposition confirmed by the massive paper cup of coffee on the desk beside him, a size normally reserved for fountain drinks at the local minimart.

  “Morning,” McKeon said. Extending a hand, he waved them inside. “Come on in, I was just going over that report your guy sent over this morning.”

  Taking a few steps forward, Reed grasped the rear of the closest chair. Tugging it back a few inches, he stepped around in front of it before lowering himself down onto the thin padding.

  A movement Billi
e matched beside him, coming to rest along his leg.

  The first stop the two of them had made after leaving the farmhouse this morning was to visit Earl at his lab. A retracing of their path from just a few hours earlier that Earl had said wasn’t necessary, though Reed insisted on making the trip.

  Knowing the man had likely been up all night working on the request and whatever else his other crime scene had produced, Reed at least wanted to extend him the courtesy of a face-to-face debrief.

  A visit that had confirmed what Billie had already told them, tying the shooter and the weapon to both scenes. A match with the report filed by Wain down in Portsmouth, the round a .300 Winchester Magnum, the rifling identical.

  “Definitely the same guy,” Reed said.

  “Yup,” McKeon agreed. Snatching up his coffee, he leaned back in his seat, the springs on it wheezing slightly beneath his weight. “Which is good, because Ellen and her team didn’t really find much of anything. Couple of footprints that revealed our shooter may or may not wear a men’s size twelve shoe. Few cigarette butts and plastic wrappers that I highly doubt he left behind.”

  Standing over the shooter’s nest the night before, Reed hadn’t expected it to reveal a whole lot. Much like the spot across from the Salem home, he figured the killer would have been scrupulous in collecting anything brought in, right down to the expended brass from the round that was fired.

  The scrap of cloth they’d been able to recover along the path was nothing more than a fluke. A small tear that the shooter hadn’t even known was there.

  A singular lucky break that wouldn’t be repeated by something as careless as a wrapper. Certainly, not from a cigarette butt that ran the risk of leaving DNA behind.

  “After I left here, I swung by my cyber guy’s place,” Reed said. “Spent over an hour digging for anything connecting the two victims. Nothing doing.”