Night Sun

by Tom Barber

  He cleared the soil around it until he could see a large bag and pulled it free.

  He dumped it onto the pile of soil on the edge of the hole, then knelt down and opened the zipper, letting out a quick laugh of relief when he saw rolls of money secured in elastic bands, still curled up in there just as he’d left them a few years ago. Seven hundred thousand dollars, his emergency fund built up over his twenty year-plus career, money his fellow former cops, the guys who’d exposed him and those who’d locked him up had no idea existed. His get out of jail free card, kept out of bank accounts where it could be found. He’d won after all.

  It took much less time to refill the hole, and when he smoothed it back over, saw in the moonlight that it had clearly been disturbed. Not that it mattered; no worker finding it could possibly guess that this was where one of the most wanted men across the eastern United States had hidden a cache of cash. He’d dump the shovel with the gloves somewhere before heading out of the Tri-State area for good.

  He smiled again, remembering again how he’d escaped from the Loughlins when Archer had distracted them back on the road leading out of Pennsylvania into New York two weeks ago. Couldn’t have done it without all three of you boys. The smirk remained in place as he picked up the bag, shovel and gloves and turned to walk back into the night.

  But then the entire area suddenly became flooded with light.

  ‘DROP THE BAG AND PUT YOUR HANDS UP!’ a voice shouted as Lupinetti stopped dead, dropping the shovel and gloves and throwing his forearm up to shield his eyes from the headlights blinding him. ‘RIGHT NOW, ASSHOLE! DO IT!’ In total shock, he shook the bag off his shoulder and raised his hands, as figures wearing vests and badges appeared out of the darkness with their weapons up, having been lying in wait. Lupinetti closed his eyes as he felt himself grabbed, pushed to the ground and cuffed, before being hoisted back up. When he was moved out of the direct glare of the headlights, he recognized the three detectives surrounding him.

  They were all Sam Archer’s teammates.

  He stared at them, stunned, his shock at being caught clear in the glare of the lights. Matt Shepherd stepped forward and pulled up the sleeve of Lupinetti’s sweater. ‘Hospital near Gatlin took a photo of your arm when you got cut. It was added to your transfer folder.’ He tapped several digits tattooed there, the co-ordinates for where the money had been hidden. ‘Had the numbers inked down in case you forgot, right?’

  Lupinetti stared in dismay at his arm then at Detectives Alice Vargas and Josh Blake who’d just opened the bag to check the contents. He looked at Shepherd, who gave him a smile just as broad as Frank’s when he’d found the cash a few minutes ago.

  ‘You’re gonna really love to hear who figured that one out,’ he told him.

  Inside USP Gatlin earlier that same day, Prez had walked back into his cell after just having a visit in the meeting hall with the temporary president of his MC. The man had been on damage control with the Pittsburgh chapter after Nicky had attacked two of their members then stolen one of their cars during his escape from Pennsylvania, police pushing hard to find out how the fugitive had ended up with the bikers in the first place. ‘When you get out, the gavel is all yours again, boss,’ the temporary president had told Rainey. ‘I can’t deal with this shit.’

  As he returned to his cell, now with less than ten months to go on his sentence, Prez found a postcard waiting for him, mail having been left in the cells during his absence.

  It was blank, but he saw the card was from Mesquite, near Dallas, Texas.

  As he looked at it, a smile on his face, there was the rattling of chains from the concourse and he turned to see a white-faced young man being led into the cell. The CO called Anderson unlocked his ankle chains and cuffs and nodded at Prez.

  ‘Meet your new celly, Rainey.’

  The doors closed behind him, and the young man stood there uncertainly staring at the older man. Prez lay down on his bunk, looking again at the postcard. ‘Welcome to prison, kid.’

  On a road just outside Vancouver, Canada, far away from Virginia and the place which had held him for eleven years and three hundred and fifty nine days, a man with a shaved head paid for some items inside a gas station, the bored attendant barely paying any attention to him.

  He got back into his car, a bag under his seat containing almost a million dollars. Nicky had bought a phone with some of the cash, using a fake name, and had learned from checking the news that Alaina, Kat’s stepsister, had been arrested and was being charged in Cleveland for a list of crimes. A reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper had done a full in-depth piece surrounding the young woman’s arrest, her charges and the accusations made against her. He’d been shocked when he’d read the news; Nicky had never taken to Alaina, but would never have suspected that she could have been responsible for Kat’s downfall. Any suspicion he’d had that Kat was being mistreated in that household had always fallen on Blair, not her daughter, and even then he’d never imagined things could have gone that far.

  But Thomas O’Mara had been wise enough to plan ahead for when he was no longer around, determined to protect his daughter and her future, which had led him to taking measures to ensure Kat would always remain financially secure, measures known only to the two of them. The deposit box within the box being shipped back to Morningstar hadn’t held money or jewelry as everyone had suspected. Instead, the titanium box had contained six separate items: five of them were $1,000,000 government treasury bearer bonds, issued in February 1977 and redeemable until 2047, rolled into a single, tight scroll.

  The bonds served as Kat’s additional inheritance and insurance from her father, which she’d so cruelly been refused access to, all due to Alaina’s malign influence. Neither mother or daughter had ever had a clue what the box contained, just that it had held something of great value. Gambling had been Tommy’s hobby, the reason why’d he’d met Blair at French Lick in Indiana, but he’d been much more successful at the tables than he’d ever let on. The bonds came from funds he’d earned playing cards over the years, a secret only he and his daughter knew about until Kat had shared it with Nicky that fateful Thursday at Gatlin, two days before the heist. Untraceable cash, converted into the bonds and left for her to do with as she saw fit.

  Nicky had been in prison long enough to know how to trade in bonds; he’d received a slightly lower price, but that had ensured the trade was kept quiet and he still had the remaining four for the future. He’d used some of the cash to source a new set of fake documents, and crossed the border without any difficulty on this side of the country after a pitstop in Texas to mail that postcard to Prez; sent to let him know he was OK and also in the hope he could convince the mass of law enforcement looking to recapture him that he was heading south into Mexico.

  The second item in the box had been a photo, from a day Thomas O’Mara, Doc Reyes, Kat and Nicky had gone to an Indians ball game. Nicky tucked it onto the sun visor in front of him before he moved back onto the road, making sure to stick to the speed limit as he continued along the highway, almost five million dollars in the car in various forms of currency.

  He thought of his mother who’d died giving birth to him and the loss of his father. Then Kat’s father’s passing. The almost twelve years in prison, followed by Kat’s death, a direct result of her desire to try and give them both a chance at a better life. The Loughlins who’d wanted him dead and the cops who he knew would be after him until the day he died. Save one, the man whose name he’d never know, who for whatever reason had given him that smallest of chances back at Onondaga County Jail, an act he’d never forget.

  He glanced at the photo on the visor, the three people he cared for most, no longer here but who in their own individual ways had done so much for him. By the time darkness had fallen, the car with Nicky Reyes behind the wheel had disappeared into the night.

  We got him once, the US Marshal talking to Marquez at the hospital had said confidently. We’ll catch him again.

 
He was wrong.

  They never would.

  ‘Blair O’Mara wasn’t involved in any of this,’ Richie told Archer over the phone, that same night on the other side of the continent at the hospital in Syracuse. ‘We all assumed she was the one blocking Kat from getting to that deposit box, but it was her daughter.’

  ‘Bunch of managers we’ve sweated put down in writing that Alaina paid them off to fire Kat,’ Glick continued, the call on speaker at their end. ‘And the college student who Reyes killed in self-defense had been in a relationship with the girl when they were at school together. She must’ve convinced the frat boy to try and get rid of her stepsister.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’ Archer asked. ‘Had they fallen out?’

  ‘Not that we can find out. Probably motivated by greed. Jealousy. Spite. All of the above. We all know teenagers act irrationally which can lead them to do some dumb things. Looks like she took it to another level and never let the grudge go.

  ‘We know too her mom inherited a huge amount when Thomas O’Mara died as well as taking over his company; but that wasn’t enough for our girl. She wanted Kat’s share too. She guessed there must be something of great value in that deposit box and knew if her mom could get control of it, it would make it much easier for her to get her hands on it. Set about ruining the girl’s life, drip-fed poison and negativity in her mom’s ear about Kat to turn her against her. She’s a real snake in the grass, this one. Much stronger personality than Blair.’

  ‘So what was in the box? You ever find out?’

  ‘No, but wherever it is, we’re pretty sure Reyes has it,’ Richie answered. ‘If it was worth something, gonna make it a lot easier for him to disappear, that’s for sure. Going back to Alaina, it looks like she targeted Kat from the moment they started living in the same house. We’re thinking she was slipping stuff into her food to make her ill.’

  ‘Would explain why Kat was suddenly sick so much as an early teen,’ Archer said, having heard about the girl’s past.

  ‘Then getting her killed at that party didn’t work, so Alaina got her hooked on substances instead once Kat’s father and the maid were gone,’ Glick said. ‘Gave her a free run.’

  ‘She started mixing small amounts of benzos into Kat’s food and drink,’ Richie continued. ‘But when Kat got out of prison clean Alaina had a problem; she knew she couldn’t keep trying to get rid of her without people getting suspicious.’

  ‘So she paid off her employers to fire her, keeping her jobless, desperate and away from her inheritance,’ Archer said. ‘If Kat’s life was still a mess, Alaina banked on the fact that she’d end up on drugs again. Ensuring the court would allow Blair to keep control of that deposit box. Then only a matter of time before Kat ended up back inside or dead.’

  ‘The way her life was unravelling, Kat was on a downward spiral which is what her stepsister wanted.’

  ‘And Nicky tried to save Kat. Wanting to pay back what her father did for his.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s what we think.’

  After talking for another ten minutes or so, the two Cleveland detectives wished Archer a swift recovery and said they’d keep him posted as the case against Alaina progressed. He knew Marquez would want to be updated, but that could wait a few hours until morning. Then, as the night drew in and darkness fell, Archer realized he wanted to be somewhere he wouldn’t be disturbed. He left his hospital room and found a bench outside the building, sitting slightly gingerly, his stitches healing and his body still recovering from that brutal, close-to-fatal fight with the Loughlins.

  He looked up at the dark sky. After his friend Lucero’s funeral, his close friend and the detective whom Lupinetti, among others, had helped kill, Archer remembered watching a sunset so fiery it had seemed as if the sky was burning. But tonight in contrast, it was totally black save for the cold white moon and a few stars. No shades of gray, unlike down here on Earth.

  Cops and prison guards trying to keep him and Marquez alive, while others had done their best to get them killed. Convicts on the run trying to take their lives, as another fugitive helped save them. A man and woman with no relationship aside from their fathers’ friendship risking all they had for each other, while a stepsister who’d had almost everything she could ever wish for doing her utmost to destroy the other girl’s life.

  How things can change, Marquez had said the night before they’d gone to Gatlin, when so much had later turned out to be far different from what it had first seemed. Good to bad, and bad to good. The Marshals would never let the case drop, however with the certainty that night was dark and day brought light, Archer knew they’d never see or hear anything about Nicky Reyes again. The man had more than paid his dues for the mistakes in his life.

  But one thing held no shades of gray. It burned and shone in Archer, the same as it did for the escaped fugitive who was Archer’s opposite in so many ways, and yet in others, so similar. A kindred spirit; like the sun and the moon taking their turns in the sky.

  Sometimes a person had to venture into the darkness.

  But the darker the night, the brighter the dawn that followed.

  THE END

  ###

  About the author:

  Born in Sydney, Australia and raised in England and Brunei, Tom Barber has always had a passion for writing and story-telling. It took him to Nottingham University, England, where he graduated in 2009 with a 2:1 BA Hons in English Studies. Post-graduation, Tom moved to New York City and completed the 2 Year Meisner Acting training programme at The William Esper Studio, furthering his love of acting and screen-writing.

  Upon his return to the UK in late 2011, Tom set to work on his debut novel, Nine Lives, which has since become a five-star rated Amazon Kindle hit. The following books in the series have been equally successful, garnering five-star reviews in the US, UK, France, Australia and Canada, and the series has had over a million books downloaded worldwide.

  Night Sun is the twelfth novel in the Sam Archer series.

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