Home Fire: A Suspense Thriller (A Hawk Tate Novel Book 5)

by Dustin Stevens

  Just as I would keep reminding myself of such things, using them as benchmarks, keeping my focus on the task at hand.

  Find Elyse. Bring her home.

  Do for my niece what I couldn’t do for my wife and daughter.

  Extending a hand, I grabbed hold of the front headlights and flashed them twice. Even parked on the second row, the quick movement was enough to catch Amber’s eye, pulling her down off the curb. Moving in the same stilted manner, she marched straight toward me, continuing her pace even as I opened the door and stepped out alongside the SUV.

  “Don’t,” she said, extending a finger before her and pointing at the car. “Be easier to talk in there.”

  Doing as instructed, I slid back behind the wheel. Unlocking the passenger door, I waited as she climbed inside, the vehicle shifting only slightly beneath her weight.

  Once she was inside and the doors closed, we both sat and stared straight ahead. No faux attempts at making nice, no side hugs in the front seat.

  Not that there had been a lot of that besides what was required by our mutual love of Elizabeth, even all those years ago.

  “Thank you for coming,” she began, sounding as if the words physically pained her.

  This was going to be even worse than anticipated.

  “Sorry it took me so long,” I replied, bypassing her thanks. “Yellowstone to Nashville takes a while.”

  I couldn’t remember if I mentioned where I was when we spoke on the phone, but if she was surprised by it now, she gave no indicator.

  That, or she truly didn’t care.

  “I don’t know if there’s anything you can do,” Amber replied, “but we appreciate you taking a look.”

  Not sure if it was sincere or a backhanded way of getting in a dig, I decided to push things forward a bit, for both our sakes.

  “How is Eric?”

  “Stable,” Amber replied, some small bit of the previous strain fleeing from her voice at the change in topic. “They’re going to keep him an extra day or two to make sure he’s stable, but I’m guessing they’ll send us home by end of the week.”

  “Does he remember much?”

  “Not a lot,” Amber replied, “and what he does is patchy.”

  Starting at the beginning, she relayed the full sequence of events, a mixture of police interpretations and her own maternal insertions. Elyse not wanting to drive her brother to the cinema, but doing it anyway so she could go to a concert next month. The two getting ice cream on their way back to the car.

  The popping sound that precipitated them stopping and him getting out of the car.

  “Does he remember anything after he stepped out?” I asked. Most of the information she had shared was background narrative, providing me with little more than a place to start looking.

  “No,” Amber replied. “The bridge of his nose is in three pieces and he has a mild concussion. Police say whoever did it was probably lying in wait, had propped something under the tire to get them to stop and then jumped out.”

  Grunting softly, I nodded. The explanation made sense, and it was a much better scenario than the alternative. It made the car the point of focus, Elyse’s inclusion a collateral occurrence. Whoever did it wanted the car running, wanted to be able to get away cleanly without damaging it in any way.

  Otherwise, they would have just grabbed her the instant she appeared, not going to the bother of getting the car to stop.

  “And then he was shot?” I asked.

  Beside me, I could hear a pained breath, could see her head drop in the faint reflection on the front windshield. “Yes. He doesn’t remember it at all.”

  “How bad?”

  “Lot of soft tissue damage,” she said. She lifted her left hand and touched the spot just beneath her collarbone on the opposite side. “Bullet went in from the back, sheared through some of the scapula before tearing the hell out of his upper pectoral muscle on the way out.”

  My left eye winced slightly. Considering the placement, things could have been a lot worse for sure. At short range, injuries from a shattered clavicle to a destroyed shoulder socket could have occurred. I didn’t want to think about what could have happened if the bullet had been on the opposite side.

  Still, soft tissue injuries were a bitch. It would require surgery and months of rehab, things that no fourteen-year-old should ever endure.

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “No,” she replied.

  “Police?” I asked.

  “Got handed off to Missing Persons this afternoon,” Amber replied. “Some prick named Russo. Could not have been more condescending or disinterested.”

  I wasn’t surprised that the case had already been turned that direction. Despite it being a grand theft auto and arguably an attempted murder, right now their chief concern would be on Elyse.

  As it should be.

  Amber’s initial assessment of the lead detective didn’t fill me with a great deal of optimism, but it would be a rock to kick over should things become desperate.

  For the time being, though, I’d prefer to go through my own paces, working through things in my own sequence.

  “No sign of the car?” I asked.

  “Not that they’ve mentioned.”

  Sitting there in the semi-darkness, there were scads more questions I wanted to ask, minor details to be fleshed out, but I let them pass. Right now, the data the answers would provide wasn’t worth the time it would take to gather it.

  I had a starting location, and I had some ideas about where to go from there.

  “What’s the license plate number on the car?” I asked.

  Pulling back the front flap of the blazer she wore, Amber took out a small piece of paper and set it in the cup holder between us.

  “And a recent picture of Amber?”

  A second item was removed from the same pocket and added to the first.

  “There will probably be more things I need as I start delving into this.”

  “You have my number,” Amber replied. “Ringer is on high, never leaves my side. Day or night, you need anything, just ask.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Most children of mixed Asian-American lineage followed a very specific pattern. A white man had met a woman from the Pacific, either through travel or military service or spending some time along the west coast. Drawn to the look – a far cry from the homogeneity of wherever they were originally from – they had partnered up, the length and success of the relationship as disparate as those the world over.

  Some lasted. Most didn’t.

  Many ended in children of multiple heritages, young ones that didn’t really belong on either side, unsure how to best navigate a society that had no idea how to treat them.

  Sirr Asai was the rare exception that had gone in the opposite direction. His father hadn’t been in the military, wasn’t even American. Born and raised in Okinawa, Asai’s mother had met him there in the Peace Corps immediately after college.

  At a time when the country was still trying to put itself back together in the decades following the end of imperialism, the two had met and fallen in love, even making a go of things for a number of years.

  Over time, the hardships of being a white western woman with ideas of her own had grown too onerous to ignore. In a society still very much predicated on feudal custom, it became clear that an artificial ceiling was imposed on their time together, the ends of their relationship inevitable.

  So, without forethought or even warning, his mother rose in the middle of the night and stole away, never to return.

  Not until she made it back home to California did she even know she was pregnant.

  The name Sirr was chosen in direct defiance of the oppression that she’d had to face in Japan. Picked so that every person he ever encountered would have to address him with respect, the name was both a blessing and a curse. It had made childhood a nightmare at times, the teasing endless, the fights and suspensions a headache his mother would have rather done wit
hout.

  But it also made him tough. It hardened his senses, ingrained in him a sort of self-reliance that most took decades longer to attain.

  It readied him for the life path he was now on, taking the inheritance from her unfortunate demise and running with it.

  Seated in the high-backed leather chair behind the desk in his office, he stared down at the framed photo of her sitting on the desk. Taken shortly before her passing, it was of the two of him at his graduation from Berkeley, he in cap and gown, she in a floral print dress.

  On her face, she looked to be practically beaming with pride.

  The single knock on the door pulled his attention away from the photo. Shifting his attention toward the sound, he lifted his chin a few inches. “Come in.”

  A moment later, Paco appeared. Still dressed in a full suit, he held a folder between his hands. Taking no more than a step inside, he said, “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes, please,” Asai replied, extending a hand to the twin leather chairs sitting opposite him.

  Turning back, Paco pushed the door shut before doing as asked. Unbuttoning the front of his suit, he lowered himself into the seat, the folder balanced in his lap.

  As he did so, Asai turned his attention to the bank of windows beside them. Overlooking the Cumberland River below, the evening sky was already darkening, stars beginning to dot the inky canvas.

  A far cry from the urban sprawl he’d grown up in, it was the type of place his mother would have enjoyed for sure.

  “Did you see the video Kuntzman sent over?” Asai asked, shifting his attention away from the view outside.

  “I did,” Paco replied. “Obviously, there was no sound, but visually, she looked to be exactly what we asked for.”

  Asai’s chin dipped just slightly in agreement. The night before, he had been less than impressed with the two men before him. Already, contingencies had been put in place if they were unable to come up with what he’d asked for.

  The fact that they had gotten back to him so quickly was good, both for his immediate needs and for any future dealings that may arise.

  “Where is the girl now?” Paco asked.

  “They have not yet taken delivery,” Asai replied. “They wanted to wait for our go-ahead before accepting.”

  Pursing his lips, Paco nodded slightly. “Prudent.”

  “It was,” Asai agreed.

  “Have you replied yet?”

  Glancing over to the screen, Asai looked to the top of the phony email account he used for all business dealings. “Before I did so, I wanted to make sure you would be available to retrieve her personally tomorrow. I know we have a lot going on.”

  “Not a problem. I’d be glad to.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The all-consuming, paralysis-inducing fear that had gripped Elyse earlier in the day had finally subsided. She had no idea where she had gone or who she was presented in front of, but it had been without a doubt the most terrifying experience of her life.

  Every sound seemed like a risk, physical abuse and sexual assault threatening to rain down upon her. Each new voice she heard was a potential attacker. Every stop they made could be her last.

  For more than two hours she had sat in the back of the car, body charged by inhuman levels of adrenaline, listening to the small bits of conversation going on around her.

  Now back in the same bedroom that had served as her holding cell the previous night, she lay with her feet on the floor, her back flat on the bed, staring at the ceiling. After the events of the day, she could feel her system flagging, a natural physiological response to the tremendous amount of energy that had filled her system.

  Two days had passed since she’d last slept. She’d had only the meager food that was brought to her that morning.

  She was exhausted. She was famished. And she needed to go to the bathroom.

  Pushing those thoughts from mind, she focused on her parents, trying to envision what they must be going through. Her mother standing in the living room, dressing down some poor officers for not doing everything or doing it fast enough. Her father hidden in the back bedroom, punching pillows or the wall or whatever else he could, blaming himself for the plight his children were in.

  And Eric...

  A thin film of moisture spread over Elyse’s eyes, threatening to leak from either corner, when the sound of a ringer chirped from the living room outside. Snapping her attention toward it, she listened as the television was turned off, the background noise it provided fading away.

  Raising her head from the bed, Elyse stared at the closed door beside her. Listening, she heard as another ring sounded out before Ronell picked up, his voice elevated slightly, more than enough to be heard through the thin wood paneling.

  “Hello? Hey, Big Man, how are you?”

  Lifting her entire upper body from the bed, Elyse rose to sit upright. Rolling her weight forward onto the balls of her feet, she moved to a standing position, careful not to make a sound.

  “Uh-huh. Yeah,” Ronell said.

  Crossing one foot over the other, Elyse moved for the door, the carpet underfoot swallowing any sound.

  “Sounds good, we’ll see you then.”

  By the time Elyse made it to the door and pressed her ear flat against it, the phone call was over. She listened as the phone was slid across a table, for the first time the voices of the other two becoming audible.

  “Was that Big Man?” Joey asked.

  “You just heard him say, Hey, Big Man,” Jamal chided, before presumably turning to Ronell. “What did he say?”

  “Said we did good,” Ronell replied. “Said they like her, want us to hang onto her until tomorrow, then bring her by.”

  “No shit?” Jamal asked.

  “No shit,” Ronell replied. “And he told us to get ready. You know what that means.”

  Behind the door, Elyse had no idea what the men were supposed to get ready for, but she knew what the rest of it meant.

  There was no way in hell she could let them get her back to that warehouse.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  My first instinct was to go straight to the parking garage and start poking around. Take a look and see if there were security cameras on site and where they fed into. Determine if there were security personnel that I might be able to talk to.

  At the very least, walk the grounds and get an idea for who I might be up against, see how they think.

  I couldn’t do any of that right now, though. Not looking the way I do, with five months of growth hanging from my face and hair spilling over the tops of my ears and along the nape of my neck. Not with every person that works or lives or goes near that complex feeling antsy, keeping a wary eye out for anybody that might wander past.

  Showing up at this time of night would accomplish nothing besides putting me on the radar. It would give people a unique look to remember, someone that they could latch onto should any cops circle back to ask follow-up questions.

  As much as I might be itching to move forward, as much time as I am aware is sliding past, I have to be smart about things. I am of no help to Elyse if I am locked up. Even less if I am tying up the other people that are supposed to be out looking for her.

  Besides, it’s not like I don’t have another equally important task to get to first.

  The decision to fly was made with an eye toward expediency, but it left me at a distinct tactical disadvantage. The amount of time and paperwork involved with bringing a weapon across state lines – even when checked – was something I could not afford. But now I am left empty handed, against at least one armed opponent, and likely many more.

  I want to be fast, but I also need to be smart.

  I am of zero help to Elyse if I’m dead.

  Turning east out of the Summit Medical Center, I climbed onto the freeway and set the cruise control. Moving at a steady seventy miles an hour, I moved out of Hermitage and past Mt. Juliet, counting exits as I went. At each one, the collection of neon lights dwi
ndled, the world starting to drift toward sleep.

  Aware of the time, and my own need for a few hours of rest, and some food, I forced my focus on the task at hand, the one thing I needed to get done tonight so I could begin fresh at dawn.

  Eighteen minutes after leaving the hospital, signs began to appear, welcoming me to the town of Lebanon. Nudging the SUV to the outside lane, I sailed past the first exit before getting off the interstate. Relying again on the grating sound of the GPS, I headed due south for three miles before turning left onto a country road.

  The last drying remains of cornfields lined both sides, the world flat. Behind me lay town, with all the trappings of food and lodging and entertainment. Before me was nothing but a faint glow in the distance, everything else still and quiet.

  “Your destination is two-point-three miles ahead on the right,” the voice announced, for the second time earning herself cut off short of arrival. Focusing on the spot ahead, I leaned hard on the gas, gripping the steering wheel tight in either hand, willing myself forward.

  The man that had responded to my online posting was named One-Eyed Jack. Whether that was a reference to his being a card shark, an unfortunate accident involving the loss of an eye, or merely a random take on his name, I had no clue.

  It’s not like the man had included a personal photo or a link to a Facebook page.

  All he had included was an address and the simple statement that he would be around until the place closed at eleven. Where it was I was going, if I was being lured into a trap, I had no way of knowing for certain.

  But it was a risk worth taking.

  With the road stretched out straight ahead of me, I dropped my left wrist over the steering wheel. Reaching out with my opposite hand, I grabbed up the photo Amber had left behind, lifting it to just a few inches short of my face. Keeping it off to the side, I alternated glances between it and the road.