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

by Dustin Stevens

  Not that I had any interest in going out that way, my bigger concern being with keeping them occupied while we made an escape.

  “Alright, come with me,” I muttered. Supporting a good chunk of her weight, together we pressed back toward the far corner of the room.

  With each step, I could feel my energy starting to wane, the trauma of being shot beginning to overcome the adrenaline rushing through my system.

  Gritting my teeth, I kept the Browning raised, reminding myself that we weren’t in the clear yet. Rotating my field of vision, I watched the room behind us, checking over everything as we shuffled forward, an awkward three-legged race team running toward the finish line.

  A finish line marked by the control button for the elevator, neither one of us in any state for expending extra time or effort in the stairwell.

  Chapter Ninety-Two

  What started with the death of Paco in the basement had only gotten worse. Standing in the confines of his office, Sirr Asai had watched as the entire evening was brought down by a single man, the reality of it playing out in real time, so obvious to see coming, the inevitability of it overwhelming.

  The entry into the main hall. The location of the girl. The shooting of his guards and the fountain. The mass exodus it created. Two more deaths before planning an exit.

  With each successive act, Asai felt his rage grow. In muted silence, he watched, his wrath boiling within, threatening to burst from every orifice, before finally it became too much.

  Paco had always been the fighter in their pairing. He had come to Asai’s aid in that bar in Tijuana years before, had been handling things ever since.

  But this time, it was Asai’s turn to end things. To avenge his friend and his employees. To finish this bearded bastard that had in one evening managed to shred what had taken him so long to build.

  And then to take the girl and subject her to the worst humiliations the world had to offer, degrading her in ways that no human being should ever have to endure.

  Who this man was or what he was to her was irrelevant. He had meddled in affairs far above his station, and he would be dealt with accordingly.

  The moment the duo started to head for the exit, Asai whirled. He moved around his desk and snatched open the top drawer, grabbing for the gun Paco always insisted he keep there.

  A Walther PPK, just like his friend had carried, the upgraded version of the PPQ made famous by James Bond for so long.

  Wrapping his hands around it, Asai dashed for the door. Going for the stairs, he took them three at a time, his feet just barely touching the ground before lunging forward again, his body hurtling through the narrow space.

  Based on how the pair was moving, there was no way they weren’t taking the elevator.

  No chance he wouldn’t be standing there waiting when they exited.

  His arms pumping, Asai took the last few stairs, bursting into the basement corridor a moment later. Sprinting as hard as he could, he heard the familiar ding of the elevator chime, locking his feet and allowing the smooth soles of his dress shoes to slide him into position just as it began to part down the middle.

  The instant a gap appeared, he lifted the gun and started to squeeze the trigger, a guttural roar pouring from him with each round.

  Chapter Ninety-Three

  Tucked into the opposite corner of the elevator, my niece sat with her arms over her head, the suit jacket she still wore seeming to cover her whole. Pressed tight against the front panel, there was just enough room along the side to protect her entire body, her frail form curled into a tight ball.

  I wasn’t quite so fortunate.

  Sitting opposite her, the control panel just inches above my shoulder, the flap of metal inside the elevator was barely enough to protect my upper half. The rest of me trailed out behind, legs pinched into the bottom corner of the car.

  One final protective measure, I had thought someone might be waiting for us at the bottom. Somebody that had stumbled upon the carnage in the basement and decided to wait and see if we’d escape the same way.

  And that if we were standing there, we would be an easy target, cut down before we’d even have a chance to return fire.

  I was right.

  The first rounds blasted through the elevator the instant the doors began to part. Pinging against the metal frame, the sound echoed around us, each one eliciting a small cry from Elyse.

  The further the doors moved, the quicker the shots came, the shooter seemingly oblivious to the fact that we weren’t standing there.

  Without knowing what kind of weapon the shooter had, how many rounds they were working with, I knew I couldn’t wait them out. Not with my legs exposed, my niece sitting helplessly across from me.

  Snaking the Browning around the side of the elevator door, I opened fire. Tugging back on the trigger as fast as I could, I emptied the remainder of the clip, squeezing even after they had stopped shooting back.

  Once the firing pin clicked empty, I pressed my shoulder into the metal wall beside me, using it as a brace, pushing myself upright. Sliding the Wilson from my waistband, I peeked around the corner, gun raised to my shoulder, barrel toward the ceiling.

  Four feet away, a man of mixed Asian-American heritage was crouched into a ball. His right arm cradled before him, the entire sleeve of his white dress shirt was red, a gunshot puncture directly in the center mass.

  Given the position of it, and the angle of his arm, I’d guess the round to have shattered his humerus. By his side lay a Walther PPK like the one Paco had carried earlier, the man making no attempt to reach for it.

  For the second time, I had gotten lucky firing blind. The guys on my old team would give me endless shit if they ever heard about it, but for the time being, I didn’t care.

  There was no such thing as style points in contests of life or death.

  Sweat bathed the man’s face as he looked up at me, his features quivering with anger as he drew in short breaths.

  “Asai?”

  Spittle ran from the corner of his mouth as he glared up at me.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  I had no interest in having a lengthy back-and-forth with the man. Every moment we stood talking was another one where the guards from the front door could come find us. Or one of the guests would call the police, law enforcement soon arriving, looking for the man with a beard that had started all this.

  I’m sure he wanted answers. Wanted to know why I had targeted him, taking down his best friend, ruining his business operations.

  But I didn’t give a damn what he wanted.

  “You kidnapped the wrong girl, asshole.”

  Part Five

  Chapter Ninety-Four

  The sun streamed in through the side window of my hospital room as my eyes cracked open. Not the white glow of early morning, but the yellow glare of late afternoon. The type of sun this time of year is best known for, the kind that always reminded me of high school football games or sitting out behind the house with my daughter, preparing the fire pit for smores later in the evening.

  The last warm rays of the year, I could feel them flush on the bed I rested in, hitting the plain white blankets, my body beginning to perspire beneath their weight.

  A few inches away, the drone of the heart rate monitor let me know that I was, in fact, alive. Beeping in a steady rhythm, the volume on it was loud enough I had no idea how it hadn’t woken me hours ago.

  Alongside the bed stood a vertical silver pole, a banana bag hanging from the hook atop it, feeding intravenous fluids into my body.

  Blinking twice, I raised my opposite arm to my face, rubbing at my eyes, feeling the crust of sleep peel away.

  “He lives.”

  The voice I knew instantly, without bothering to lower my hand. Continuing what I was doing, I pressed into my eyes until bright orbs of color began to pop before dropping my hand back into place.

  “I can’t tell if you’re happy or sad about that.”

  Seated beside the be
d was my sister-in-law. Dressed in the same outfit I’d last seen her in, she gave me a wan smirk, the most it appeared she could muster at the moment.

  If forced to guess, I would say she hadn’t gotten a bit of sleep since before she first called me. Whenever that was.

  Opening her mouth, as if beginning to say something, she paused. Shifting her attention to the window, she held the pose, something on the tip of her tongue, though she remained silent.

  “How is she?” I asked.

  Jerking her attention back to me, the previous look on her face faded slightly.

  After getting Elyse away from the house that night, I drove her straight back to Summit Medical Center. I’d texted ahead and told Amber to meet us downstairs, to have a receiving team with her when we pulled up.

  It was the last I had seen of either one.

  “She’s okay,” Amber replied. “Physically, anyway. She has a cut on her cheek and some bumps and bruises, but no signs of sexual assault.”

  “Her bloodwork?” I asked, remembering her listless demeanor as I helped her back to the car. The way I tried and tried to get her to interact with me on the drive back.

  “Only a sedative, thank God.”

  Grunting, I nodded slightly. “And the rest?”

  “Not sure yet,” Amber said. “They hit her with enough to stupefy a horse, so it wasn’t until around noon today that she actually started coming out of it. She hasn’t said a lot since.

  “Just keeps apologizing to us about Eric and the car.”

  As she spoke, her eyes became glassy. Her voice grew thick, catching a tiny bit.

  “As if any of us give a damn about the car.”

  In truth, I had completely forgotten about the thing. So much of my energy had been focused on Asai, on finding Elyse and getting to her in time, it was hard to believe the entire thing had started over some kid wanting a BMW.

  Maybe there was a reason I had been able to hit both Paco and Asai without lining up the shot.

  Karma owed us.

  “I’m sorry about driving off,” I said. “I wanted to come in, but I didn’t want to make things any harder for her than I knew they would be.”

  Her brow furrowing, she looked my way, trying to decipher what I meant.

  “I wanted the focus to be on her. I knew if I walked in with her, gunshot wound to the abdomen, they’d start asking a lot of questions. Probably call the police. Whole thing would turn into a circus.”

  Which was all true, but only half of it.

  The rest was the fact that it was almost certain that every inch of that mansion was lined with cameras. Probably microphones too, that being the reason Asai’s last words were to ask my name.

  Anybody combing through the stuff would see Elyse with me, there was no denying that, but seeing us arrive at the same hospital, being treating at the same time, would make the connection too much for anybody looking to ignore.

  Especially one person in particular.

  “In the moment, I didn’t think much of it,” Amber said. The gloss of tears that had covered her eyes grew heavier, a single drop collecting in the far corner and sliding over her cheekbone. “I was just so damn happy to see my daughter.

  “Wasn’t until a while later that I realized you were gone.”

  Shifting my head away from her, I rested it back against the pillow behind me. I again thought of that night, of the pain I was in, enough that fuzz was starting to push in from the sides of my vision, my head swimming.

  How I had made it past Summit and on out to St. Thomas, I hadn’t a clue, fortunate only to have arrived no worse than when we’d left Ashland Falls.

  “How’d you find me?” I asked.

  “Got on the phone and started calling around,” Amber replied. “Weren’t any Hawks out there, but it didn’t take long to track down Jeremiah Tate.”

  Without looking her way, the corner of my mouth turned upward.

  My father was a huge fan of the movie Jeremiah Johnson, so much so that the official name on my birth certificate was Jeremiah Hawkens Tate, the middle name a nod to the favored rifle of the title character.

  To anybody that’s ever known me for more than a minute, though, from my drill instructors to my elementary school teachers, it’s always just been Hawk.

  “Seemed easier,” I replied.

  “There’s a VA hospital right down the road from Summit, you know,” she said.

  Whether she approved of my decision, she didn’t say, though I took her silence on the topic to be positive.

  “How you feeling?” she asked.

  Raising my right hand, I turned my palm toward the ceiling, lifting it an inch or two before letting it fall back into place. “Like I’ve been shot. You?”

  Again, she smirked, the corner of her mouth folding backward. Her blinking increased, a sharp inhalation the only sound.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  Of everything in the world she could have said, of all the responses there were, it was easily the last one I expected. Lifting my head from the pillow, I began to respond, cut off by her upturned hand.

  “Those things I said to you...”

  She didn’t owe me an apology. For anything. Not one thing she said was wrong, the sentiments she shared that night paling in comparison to the way I felt.

  The way I still felt sometimes.

  “I was wrong. I don’t hate you,” she eventually said. “I just really miss her.”

  For the first time in years, I felt moisture lining my own eyes. Burning hot, it rested just above my cheeks, threatening to streak south.

  Even now, after a few days, it was still so hard to look at her without seeing my wife. To have seen Elyse without wondering if that’s what my daughter might have become.

  “I miss them both.”

  Once more, her mouth opened. She raised her hand before her, pausing to consider it for a moment, before extending it the rest of the way, resting it atop mine.

  Squeezing it softly, I could feel the warmth of her palm on my skin.

  “There is no way we can ever thank you for what you did. I don’t even know the whole story, may never hear all of it, but just what I can see here...”

  Whether she ever heard all that happened, I would leave up to Elyse. The things I had done, the decisions I made, were all because of the situation I was in.

  None of it was I proud to have exposed a sixteen-year-old girl to. Especially not one I cared about.

  Just as I couldn’t imagine there was much of it her mother actually wanted to hear.

  My only hope was that the sedative had been as strong as rumored, insulating them both from some of the realities that occurred.

  Realities that likely meant their time in Nashville was over. That Elyse might even want to start going by her middle name for a while. That the police would be by soon enough – if they hadn’t been already – to ask me how a Walther PPK round ended up in my side.

  Conversations that could be left for a later time.

  “When I showed up there last night,” I whispered, “she didn’t know who I was.”

  I was willing to bet Eric wouldn’t recognize me either.

  Just as my sister-in-law had done a moment before, I blinked in rapid succession, keeping the moisture collected on my eyelashes from falling.

  “Elizabeth would be ashamed. I’d like to do better.”

  At the mention of my wife’s name, Amber’s grasp grew tighter. Twin streaks moved down her cheeks, the light pouring in through the window reflecting off them.

  “I think we’d all like that,” she whispered. “Starting as soon as you’re up and out of this bed.”

  Wrapping my thumb around the top of her hand, I squeezed, an unspoken promise to do just that.

  I only had one thing I needed to finish first.

  The hinges on the side door into the home moaned slightly as he pushed in from the garage, a paper bag gripped tight. It rustled slightly as he shifted it to his left hand, the smell of Pad
Thai drifting up, the promise of noodles and peanuts and hot sauce just moments away.

  Using his right, he unloaded his keys and wallet, his badge and gun remaining in the car. On call for the night, they stayed stowed in the glove compartment, ready for whatever may arise, calling him out into the wee hours.

  One at a time, he arranged the discarded items into precise order on the counter inside the door. Wallet flush against the wall, squared with the edge. Keys on the hook above.

  Sliding out of his loafers, he placed them on the lower ledge of the table, toes against the wall, heels aligned with precision.

  Professional presentation did not end at the office. It was a mindset, a way of conducting oneself that permeated everything they did.

  Sloppiness was a vice of the weak and the wicked.

  Closing the door beside him, he made it two steps across the tile floor of his kitchen, headed for the island in the center of the space, before his pace slowed. His attention turned to the side, the spread of papers arrayed across the kitchen table.

  There was no way he would have left such a mess. Or even made one to begin with.

  The bag of food still in hand, he inched closer, staring down at the papers, recognizing the assortment of documents and photographs almost instantly.

  “You know what I couldn’t figure out at first?” a voice asked.

  Male, it was thick and deep, completely free of tone or inflection.

  “Not how you found Kuntzman’s body so quickly,” the man said, “but why you lied to the Denman’s about bringing him into custody.”

  His stomach dropped as he turned slowly, his mind working through things. His eyes flicked to the butcher block on the counter beside the refrigerator. He thought of the Glock stored in the closet in his bedroom.

  Drawing in a deep breath, he settled his focus on a man several inches taller than he was, his head largely hidden beneath a beard and a thick tangle of hair. Standing in the center of the living room, his weight favored one side a bit, a Browning Hi Power extended from his opposite hand.