Tracking Shot

by Colin Campbell

  “It seems like the more I try to help the more I drag you down.”

  Susan shook her head. “It’s not you who dragged us down. It goes back further than that.”

  McNulty stood on the edge of the shadows in the garage doorway. This time it was he who couldn’t speak.

  Susan unfolded her arms. “It’s the person who put us in Crag View in the first place.”

  McNulty felt cold despite the July heat. “Our parents?”

  “Or parent.”

  “Yes. Or that.”

  McNulty couldn’t bring himself to breach the barrier and Susan didn’t come out. They spoke as if an invisible force field were keeping them apart and he supposed that was true. A shared past that was different for each of them. McNulty spoke softly. “Did they ever tell you about them?”

  “You were the oldest.”

  McNulty snorted a laugh. “Cruckshank didn’t even tell me about you.” He shrugged. “During the adoption process? On the papers? Anything?”

  “No.”

  She didn’t expand on that, and McNulty didn’t press. He nodded at the house. “How is she?”

  Susan glanced over her shoulder as if Tilly might be listening. “She’ll be fine.”

  She looked at her brother and smiled for the first time. “We’ll be fine. The McNulty’s are a tough breed.”

  McNulty smiled at his sister, knowing this was goodbye, and she finally came out of the shadows. They stood in the warm afternoon sunshine and hugged each other. It didn’t take one of them to go first; it was just a natural thing. The unspoken farewell. McNulty held her tight then stepped back. “I didn’t think you’d lose the house.”

  Susan shrugged. “It was always his. With his fall comes the fallout.”

  “Does she know he’s her father?”

  She shook her head. “We split before she was born. His second marriage. I guess it was a father figure kind of thing,” referring to the age difference. She looked at her brother. “Sometimes it’s best not to know.”

  McNulty considered the terrible things DeVries had planned for his own daughter and couldn’t have agreed more. He wondered if it was better for himself and Susan not to know who their parents were—if it was better not to know the reason they’d been abandoned at Crag View—but he couldn’t help thinking he’d like to have known. Sometimes life throws shit at you, and it isn’t always sweetness and strength, but sometimes a little sweetness does come your way.

  “Come here a minute.” He led Susan to the back of the car and opened the trunk. He took a pink girl’s haversack out and gave it to his sister. “Something for the road.”

  Susan looked at the bag. “She doesn’t like pink.”

  McNulty nodded at the zipper. “How about green?”

  Susan unzipped the bag and several tight bricks of bills almost fell out. A lot of bricks. Her mouth dropped open and tears formed in her eyes. McNulty zipped the bag shut for her. “I had to make room for the spring mount and the explosives.”

  Susan gathered herself. “How much?”

  McNulty shrugged. “Enough.”

  Another jet took off from Logan International. The dog stopped barking but the birds kept singing. This time there was the sound of children playing two houses farther along Kirkstall Road. Maybe friends of Tilly. Maybe even Tilly playing with them. The sun was warm on McNulty’s back. He slammed the trunk and opened the driver’s door. Susan held the door open for him. “And you?”

  McNulty leaned forward and kissed Susan on the forehead. “Larry reckons the publicity’s going to make this one a blockbuster.” He smiled at his sister and dangled the car keys. “Titanic Productions is going to Hollywood.”

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Once again it’s time to thank all those people who helped make this happen. Instead of the list getting shorter it just keeps getting longer, so I’ll start with the obvious. Eric Campbell and Lance Wright at Down & Out Books for continuing to have faith in me. Donna Bagdasarian for being my agent in the early days and suggesting that I set my books in America. Good call, Donna. And to the growing list of authors who have supported me along the way, including Lee Child, Reed Farrel Coleman, Nick Petrie, Chris Mooney, Andrew Grant, Bruce Coffin and Ace Atkins. I’ve saved the most important for last: you, the reader. Hopefully, more than one. Happy reading.

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  Ex-army, retired cop and former scenes-of-crime officer, COLIN CAMPBELL served with the West Yorkshire police for thirty years. He is the author of the UK crime novels Blue Knight White Cross and Northern Ex, and the U.S. thrillers featuring rogue Yorkshire Cop Jim Grant.

  CampbellFiction.com

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  BOOKS BY COLIN CAMPBELL

  The Jim Grant Thrillers

  Jamaica Plain

  Montecito Heights

  Adobe Flats

  Snake Pass

  Beacon Hill

  Shelter Cove

  Catawba Point

  A Vince McNulty Thriller

  Northern Ex

  Final Cut

  Tracking Shot

  The UK Crime Series

  Blue Knight White Cross

  Ballad of the One Legged Man

  Through the Ruins of Midnight

  Short Story Collection

  Permission Granted

  Children

  Gargoyles—Skylights and Roofscapes

  Horror

  Darkwater Towers

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  Here is a preview from Moonlight Rises, the second Dick Moonlight thriller by Vincent Zandri.

  Click here for a complete catalog of titles available from Down & Out Books and its divisions and imprints.

  Prologue

  You’re dead.

  You’re floating above a hospital bed that’s served as your final resting place for the past twenty-four hours, ever since the cops dragged your sad body from out of that back alley.

  You’re dead.

  Really stone dead this time.

  You stare down at yourself and you’re amazed at how fucked up you look. Like fifty miles of chewed up road. White skin and bones, your now tight-jowled face carrying only a scarred remnant of its former baby-cheeked charm. “All teeth” as your mortician father used to say, cringing at the sorry state of some terminally ill neighbor (and, quite likely, his next client).

  You have to admit it: maybe those cops shouldn’t have rescued you at all. Maybe they should have just cut to the chase, left you for dead on the black, pee-soaked macadam. Because in the end…in the final analysis, all those tear-jerking, heroic attempts the Albany Medical Center staff made at resuscitation turned out to be all for nothing. Because now you’re dead. And there isn’t a single thing the doctors or God or Buddha can do about it.

  There is however, one bright light that shines against all that darkness:

  Your girlfriend, Lola.

  At least Lola has stood by your side through every second of your final struggle. At least Lola has been true blue. She’s stood by your deathbed-side until the bitter end, just like any one of those famous, gladly-take-a-bullet-for-my-sig-other couples that have come and gone throughout history. Like Mary and Joseph, Antony and Cleopatra, Bonnie and Clyde. Like John and freaking Yoko.

  And oh, my my, if she isn’t looking choice today.

  Long, velvety dark hair draping narrow shoulders. Tall, sexy body. Tight white Levis over black cowboy boots. The Niconas you bought for her during a weekend getaway in N-Y-C. Black lace push-up bra under a loose, white, low-cut, V-neck T-shirt. She’s got these white-rimmed Jackie Os covering sad brown eyes. Jackie Os that were designed to hide the never-ending tears of a cursed Kennedy wife. Makes you feel all sorts of warm and fuzzy inside even if your soul has left your body to become just an unidentifiable, immeasurable mass of transformed heat energy.

  If only you could reach out, hold her one more time, tell her all those corny I
’ve-seen-the-other-side-of-life things. Tell her you’re going to a wonderful place, that death really isn’t the end, that you’ll wait for her, etcetera, etcetera. You want to wipe away her tears with a single index finger, just like Patrick and Demi in Ghost.

  Lola, I’m so in love with you right now, more than I ever was in life. I’m so…

  That is, until a strange man enters the hospital room.

  Can’t quite make out the dude’s face since he’s wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses, and you’re forced to look down at him from up at the ceiling. But he’s about your own height, Gold’s Gym slim, wiry, no stranger to sweat-soaked workouts. And you should know. Up until this little life-ending mishap the most fun you had with your clothes on was bench pressing two-thirty-five for ten reps.

  Maybe you can’t see his face, but you sense that he could be young. Like, real young. Like not even over thirty young. He’s wearing a tight T-shirt, black leather jacket, tight blue jeans, and yeah, he’s got some brand-new cowboy boots going, too.

  Niconas. Black.

  Identical to the pair you own. Like he got his pair during a cozy afternoon shopping date to the mall followed by a major face-sucking session in the parking lot. At least, that’s the way it had been for you not so long ago. You and Lola.

  Dude comes so close to your girlfriend he’s practically kissing her on the mouth, his left hand gently brushing up against her left butt cheek. Your car wreck of a body isn’t even cold yet and this jerk is about to make out with your sig other right inside the room where, by the grace of God, your soul is leaving the building. Some precious-time-to-be-alone-with-your-dearly-departed-loved-one this turned out to be.

  You get like, what, one of these look-at-your-own-dead-body deals in a lifetime? And now the sig other has to go and ruin it for you.

  But then hold on a second. Take a deep breath. You’ve got an idea. What if you try and make like a skydiver and dive right back into your body? You’ve heard about those dead people who’ve come back to life just like that when they’ve appeared to be gone-baby-gone. What if you try and dive back down into your body so you can jump the hell out of that bed, put those bench presses to work, and kick Gold’s Gym’s scrawny ass for good?

  But as much as you wish re-entry, you know there ain’t no goin’ back for the dead and almost buried. There’s only the sad sight of your former girlfriend walking out of the hospital room, her brand new, buffed-out Some Young Guy floating close behind and no doubt admiring her choice posterior. And damn if he never did even have the decency to show his face. As if he knew all the time that you were watching him.

  So, what to do?

  Catch your breath and start over.

  This time with the basics.

  Here’s the deal: You’re dead.

  Some gang of three big-ass mofos wearing President Obama Halloween masks, and pressing handheld electronic synthesizers up against their necks to mask their voices, pulled you off the street, dragged you into a back alley, beat you with fists, boot heels, and pistol barrels, and left you to bleed out alone. They said almost nothing to you, except for the tall barrel-chested one in the middle, who spat, “You should have stayed away from Peter Czech!”

  You couldn’t figure out if the voice was foreign or not. Not with that synthesizer pressed up against his voice box. Anyway, that’s when you blacked out.

  And now that you’re dead, you can see that your girlfriend has been doing the wild thing behind your back with someone else. Name and face not known. Maybe for a short time, maybe for a long time. You have no idea. All you know is that he’s a stud man, and she’s probably giving him a hummer right now inside her four-wheel, gas-guzzling Hummer in the AMC parking garage.

  But you know what? You’re no longer angry or jealous.

  Maybe that’s because of the speck of bright white light forming in front of your eyes. You begin to feel yourself moving from the ceiling toward the light, through this tunnel at lightning speed. It’s like something out of the Discovery Channel. You’re moving faster than light itself. You’re not afraid of the speed, not afraid of crashing, not afraid of dying. Because what the hell, you’re already dead.

  Next comes the heavenly brakes gently applied and you find yourself standing inside the pool of light. There’s somebody walking toward you. At first the somebody looks like ET waddling through all that light. You know, just a little dark, awkward silhouette. But soon ET begins to take shape. The closer it comes at you, the more it takes on a human form. Then, just like that, the silhouette becomes a real person.

  It’s your dad.

  Holy crap, you haven’t seen your dad since he bought the farm from the big C all those years ago. And the funny thing is, he’s younger than you are now. He died at forty-six years old and you just turned forty-eight. Now you’re older than the old man and you’re standing there inside all eternity with him.

  You’re not sure what to do. You don’t know the newly-arrived-in-heaven protocol. Do you hold out your hand for him to shake? Do you take him in your arms and embrace him? You were sort of close back on earth. But you weren’t touchy feely.

  You opt for the easy way out.

  —Yo, what’s up, Dad?

  The old man is dressed in the suit you buried him in under the oak tree at the Albany Rural Cemetery. Black pinstriped double-breasted, bright red rose on the lapel, hair slicked back with Dippity-Do. He looks pretty damn good for a guy been dead going on three decades.

  —Son, I’ve missed you. I’ve been able to watch the play-by-play over the years and I must say, life hasn’t been easy for you.

  Okay, now you feel red-faced embarrassed. Was it possible for the old man to see everything you’ve done? With and without clothes on?

  —You know what happened then…to my head?

  You find yourself touching the small button-sized scar behind your right ear, where a frag of .22 caliber hollow-point penetrated your skull during an aborted suicide attempt that went bad. If any of that makes sense.

  —Son, things kind of got out of control. Your wife, she had an affair with your partner. Then you fell in love with a sadly married scarlet-haired beauty whom you could not have, and it nearly killed you both.

  —You disappointed in me, Dad?

  —You lived. You survived for your boy. But Richard, you are a hopeless victim of love.

  The old man is smiling at you now. You can’t believe he’s really there in front of you. Alive but dead. Younger but older. But time is of the essence here, and you decide to pull off the nearest exit on this conversation and take a new route.

  —What’s it like being dead, Dad?

  —You tell me.

  —No, I mean for a long time.

  —Time is a nothing here.

  —Are we in heaven?

  —You could say that. I believe I raised you to believe in that kind of thing.

  —What should I do first?

  —Nothing.

  —Nothing?

  —You do nothing because you’re not done with life.

  —Not done with life…I don’t get it.

  The old man’s smile melts off his face. He takes a step back, purses his lips. You pick up on the old man’s expression right away. It means the earth, or should you say heavenly space, is about to shift right out from under your feet.

  —I’m not staying, am I, Dad?

  —You’re not ready, kid.

  You recall the Some Young Guy your sig other was nearly tonguing inside the hospital room. You see something else, too. In your dead head you see the Obama-masked mugs of those mofos who pulled you off the street, pulled you into a back alley, kicked you in the face, kicked you in the kidneys.

  But the good news is this: If you do come back alive, you might be able to take care of some unfinished business with said Obama-masked thugs. But then something else dawns on you. It dawns on you that if your dad could see you from heaven, then maybe he can help ID the bastards who
further fucked up your already fucked up head. Masks or no masks.

  —Dad, who killed me?

  —You can’t ask me questions like that, son. It’s against the rules.

  —Are they the Russians I put out of business? They had accents, I think. Or are they the on-the-take cops I exposed? Were they sent by my ex-wife to collect for back child support? Speak to me, Dad!

  —You have work to do, Richard.

  —What about that guy with Lola in the hospital room, Dad? Some Young Guy! You must have seen him. I couldn’t get a good look at his face. At least tell me his name!

  But the old man isn’t talking anymore. Not about thugs; not about Lola’s new lover. Maybe up in heaven that’s considered cheating. He’s just back-stepping, back into the light.

  Correction: he’s not walking so much as he’s floating back into the light, his body getting smaller and smaller, his figure becoming silhouetted against the light. Until finally he becomes one with the light.

  That’s when something amazing happens. The light disappears. It’s replaced with that tunnel, or wormhole. You’re speeding through the wormhole so fast you feel the skin on your face peeling back away from your skull. That skin means you’re becoming human again. And because you’re human again, the lacerations on your arms begin to throb, your broken nose begins to bleed, your teeth loosen up, lips swell, your big black eye closes back up, your spleen bleeds internally, your kidneys balloon to twice their size, a big gash opens up on your right side, your temperature rises to a dangerous 103.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

  Like careening out of control down a long schoolyard slide, you’re going too fast. Until there’s no slide left, and you drop flat onto your glutes, the entirety of your 175 pounds re-injected into damaged skin and bone. You suck in a breath, open your one good eye to a blinding overhead light, and abracadabra-holy-freakin’-crap, you’re alive again.