by Matt Lincoln
“Fair point,” Nina said, biting her lip. “I’ll tell Osborne to prepare for that if push comes to shove.”
She began typing away on her phone again at this.
“Alright, what’s next?” Holm asked, coming to a halt in front of the shop’s doors and putting his hands on his hips as he gazed out at the path behind us, which was just an asphalt bike path around the shore. The parking lot was up above us a bit, on a hill that began right at the edge of the asphalt.
“There’s no phone number on the door,” Nina remarked, gazing at the shop’s doors. “I guess we could try to get an address for one of the owners from the police.”
“Maybe we should just head back then,” I suggested. “I don’t want to miss anything else waiting around here.”
I checked my watch. It had been more than an hour now, and Samuels and his nephew weren’t back from lunch yet.
“I’ll message the police about them, too,” Nina said, continuing to type. “There’s no use heading back if we’ll just have to turn right around.”
“There might be news, though,” Holm said hopefully.
“If there was news, we’d be the first to know about it,” I pointed out, though I was sure my partner knew this already.
We were all getting more than frustrated with the lack of progress, and the summer heat wasn’t exactly helping matters.
“We have a lead, though,” I said with a vigorous nod, more to convince myself than anyone else. “That’s something. We have some movement we can report back to the parents. No specifics, though, unfortunately. We still can’t rule them out entirely.”
The more we worked this case, though, the less of a suspicion I had about any of the three parents being involved with all this. There was just too much going on, and they all seemed genuine to me, if a bit flawed, though who wasn’t, really.
“Let’s go,” Holm suggested again. “There’s no one out here, and I don’t really want to be here anymore.”
There was sweat glistening on his brow, and I couldn’t help but notice that my own clothes were growing heavier by the second. He wasn’t wrong. We weren’t good to anyone in a puddle on the ground.
“Alright, we can go drive around a bit,” I said. “Nina, you said there were private beaches around here, right? Like the one we found those college kids at? Maybe someone’s on one of those.”
“Ugh, we’re knocking on doors again?” Holm sighed, though even he knew there wasn’t much else to be done. “Fine.”
“Sure,” Nina said with a shrug, not sounding too enthusiastic about this, either.
We were all facing the hill bearing the parking lot by then, with our backs to the rental shop doors.
Then, I heard a rustle back over my shoulder, off to the side or even behind the shop.
The noise was too loud to be an animal, and we hadn’t seen any animals while in the bay. We also hadn’t seen any other people, and the lights in the shop were dark, with no sign of life inside.
I exchanged a look with Holm and then with Nina. Judging by the way they had each tensed up, they heard the same thing that I did.
“Is anyone there?” Nina asked in a loud voice, instinctively reaching to her side where her gun was holstered. “FBI! Put your hands up and step out from behind the building immediately.”
There was a long period of silence, to the point where I was beginning to think that I imagined things or that the three of us had some kind of collective hallucination in the heat.
Then, just as I was starting to think that it was really nothing, after all, the noise repeated itself, further to my left this time, but still behind me.
I looked at the other two again and saw that they, too, had heard the second noise.
Almost as one, Holm and I whirled around with our guns out while Nina pulled out her own weapon and covered our backs.
“Federal agents, put your hands up!” Holm, who was closest to where the noise had come from, hollered.
Before I even knew what was happening, a shot rang out behind us, then another that came from right next to me. The next thing I knew, Holm was on the ground, and a man was sprinting out away from him, while more rustling sounds came from behind me and to my right now.
“I’ll go this way, you go that way,” Nina said quickly, nodding in each direction, and with that, I darted off after the running man while Nina turned to inspect whatever that second noise was.
I jumped over Holm, not having time to duck down and make sure he was okay. I heard him groan, signifying that he was still alive, at least, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw blood drifting out to color the asphalt, though I wasn’t sure where in my partner’s body it was coming from yet.
The man was fast but not as fast as I was. He was bogged down by far too many clothes, I realized as I gained ground on him, and they looked vaguely familiar.
I almost kicked myself when I realized what it was. He was wearing the exact same disguise as the second man from the mall security footage, the one with the gun. He also had a similar ski mask on, though it was more navy than the black I remembered from the video.
“You’re not going to last long!” I hollered at the man as I came upon him from behind. I could hear him panting now, dragged down by so many clothes in the hot sun. There wasn’t much of a breeze, either, so there was no cool wind from the ocean to cool him, or myself for that matter.
As hot as I was, though, it wasn’t nearly as bad as this guy, who was practically dripping onto the asphalt. He still had a gun, though, and I cursed under my breath. I didn’t want to shoot a man in the back, but I wasn’t sure that I was going to get any choice in the matter.
I heard screams and more gunshots ringing out behind me, but I didn’t dare turn around to see what was happening with Nina. The second I turned my back on him, this guy could end up killing me.
I tried to remember if the screams were female or not, but I’d hardly been paying attention. Nina had a low-ish voice anyway, and the other perp could be a woman, too, though, so it wouldn’t really tell me much to remember.
“Stop, or I’ll shoot!” I screamed at the man, holding up my gun but not ceasing my sprint. “I mean it, don’t test me!”
I wasn’t exactly sure if I meant it or not. Sure, the guy had a gun, but he had his back turned to me, and he wasn’t shooting at me right now, like that idiot in the Keys who shot at me without even turning to look while I was chasing him. Still, he had a gun… He was probably going to kick it soon, though, the way things were going for him. Maybe I could just wait it out…
The decision was made easy for me when the man whirled around, seemingly realizing that he wasn’t going to make it wherever he was going before collapsing, and shot in my direction.
He shot at me before he had the time to aim properly, however, and I was a rapidly moving target to boot. The bullet ricocheted off the asphalt, and I had to leap out of the way to avoid it ripping up and hitting me in the face.
I quickly aimed my gun at him, in turn, gaining the split second necessary to make a better shot than he had when he jumped in surprise at the bullet’s odd movements, seeming to have surprised himself with how poor of a shot it was.
I raised my gun and shot him once, twice, three times in the chest. He fell to the ground in a pile of sweat and blood.
I strained my ears to try to hear anything else from behind me as I continued to run forward until I reached the goon, bending down to make sure that he was out. He wasn’t just out. He was dead.
The only thing I could hear at that point, no matter how hard I tried, was the shots ringing in my ears and my own pounding heart. I couldn’t see anything behind me, either, other than the shop itself, so I fell down to my knees beside the man’s corpse, sweaty and exhausted.
16
Ethan
I lay in the hot sun for a few moments, not quite able to collect myself yet. Everything was in a haze until I felt something hot and sticky against my arm. I looked down to see that the goon’s bloo
d was seeping all into my clothing.
Knocked back into reality, I pulled myself up, fumbled for my phone, and called for an ambulance and backup. It was only a moment before I heard sirens, not far from where we were. Police were crawling all over the area, having come in from neighboring towns and cities to help with the search for Mikey.
Eventually, I managed to crawl back to my feet, regain some of my energy, and make it back to the shop, where I found Holm still groaning in a puddle of his own blood.
I knelt down next to him, squeezing his shoulder gently.
“Help is coming, okay, buddy?” I asked him, looking for some sign that he could hear me. “They’ll fix you up real soon.”
He didn’t answer right away, and for a moment, I was afraid he was slipping. But then the trace of a smirk crossed his softly-parted lips.
“Always trying to steal the glory from me, eh, Marston?” he croaked, and I chuckled, glad to see he was alright.
I inspected him more closely, trying to find the source of the blood, but it had pooled all around the right side of his shirt and the surrounding asphalt, so I couldn’t quite make it out.
“Do you know where you were hit?” I asked.
“Arm,” he managed, wincing as he said the word. “I’ll be fine, Marston. Go check on Nina.”
Nina. How had I forgotten Nina? I cursed myself internally and shook my head to clear it.
“Where…?” I started to ask, but Holm cut me off.
“Around the other side,” he rasped, his voice and attention starting to fade as the sirens drew nearer. “Another… another goon…”
And just like that, my partner dropped his head back against the asphalt and slipped into unconsciousness. I reached out to check that he still had a steady pulse. He did.
I leapt up and jogged around to the other side of the boat rental shop to look for Nina and the other perp. I couldn’t remember hearing anything else from their scuffle after the screaming, but that didn’t mean much considering how out of it I’d gotten.
They weren’t behind the shop, but it still didn’t take long for me to find them.
“Stay still!” I heard Nina grumble from my left and I whirled around to see her leading a man in handcuffs dressed much like the one I had killed, except his ski mask was darker, like the one in the security video. Both of them looked unharmed, to my relief.
“Are you okay?” I asked breathlessly as I ran up to meet them.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Nina said, waving me off. “What about Holm?” She gave me an anxious look, and I realized she must’ve not been able to check up on him yet.
“He’ll be okay, I think,” I said, reaching up to run a hand through my sweaty hair and then realizing that it was still covered in the first goon’s blood. “Just a shot in the arm. I called an ambulance.”
The sirens were growing even closer then, and I realized they must be pulling into the parking lot up above as we spoke.
“Are you okay?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at me and looking me up and down. I then realized that I must’ve been a sight to behold, all sweating and covered in blood as I was.
“I’m fine,” I said quickly, shaking my head and dropping my arms to my sides. “The other guy is dead. It’s his blood.”
“Rudy?” the other goon gulped, almost yelping at this news.
Nina glared at him.
“We can talk about you and your friend later,” she snarled at him, as the lights from the police cars and ambulances up in the parking lot reflected down off the water in the bay. “Come on.”
She jerked the goon unceremoniously in the direction of the cars and then led him up the steps to the police. I walked back over to Holm and stayed with him until two paramedics with a gurney arrived shortly thereafter, bending down to inspect my partner just as I had moments before. He was still unconscious now, though.
“How long has he been like this?” one of the paramedics asked me.
“Just a couple of minutes,” I assured him. “He was awake and pretty lucid a minute ago. Weak, but lucid.”
The paramedic nodded like this was a good thing.
“We’ll take good care of him,” he assured me.
“He’s going to be okay?” I asked, taking a hesitant step toward them.
The man squinted back down at Holm’s arm, inspecting the wound.
“I’d say so,” he said. “Doesn’t look like the bullet hit any major arteries. He’s lost a lot of blood, though, so he’ll probably need a transfusion.”
I pulled two of my business cards out of my jacket and handed them to the paramedic, leaving a bloody thumbprint on the white paper.
“Call me when you know anything, okay? Give one to the doctor, too, if you don’t mind,” I instructed, and he nodded, squinting down at my name.
“Will do, Agent Marston,” he said. Then, narrowing his eyes at my bloody clothing, “You alright, yourself? You want to come and get checked out?”
“No, I’m fine,” I said, shaking my head. “This isn’t my blood.”
“Alright, then,” he said with a shrug as he and the other paramedic began to load Holm onto the gurney. “You look pretty dehydrated, though, so make sure you have something to drink.”
I thought back to lunch, and how after a certain point, I’d been too worried about the case to eat or drink anything and realized that he was probably right, and that was why I had nearly fainted before.
“Thanks, I’ll make sure to do that,” I told him, wiping some more sweat off my brow with my non-bloodied hand as I followed the paramedics up the set of stairs not far from there to the parking lot.
I looked back one last time at the boat rental shop, though there was still no sign of the owner or his nephew. I made a mental note not to forget to check back in with them when all was said and done. We still needed to know about that boat, and whether Mr. Samuels had really lent it out to someone and forgotten about it, or whether it had been stolen. Maybe the surviving perp would be able to answer that question if Mr. Samuels couldn’t, at least.
Up in the parking lot, there were several police cars and two ambulances. The two paramedics hauled Holm into one of the ambulances, groaning and rolling his head as he began to drift back into consciousness.
“It’s alright, Agent Holm,” the second paramedic, a woman, murmured to him. “You’re safe now. We’re going to take good care of you.”
Before I had a chance to say any parting words to my partner, the ambulance doors closed behind him, and the ambulance itself sped off, sirens blazing again.
A second set of paramedics hauled a black body bag, no doubt carrying the goon with them toward the other ambulance.
“Make sure the forensics team gets to examine him,” I said, approaching them quickly before they had a chance to speed off like the ambulance carrying Holm.
“Of course, sir,” one of the paramedics said, nodding to me deferentially. “We’ve already spoken to them about that. They’re going to meet us at the morgue.”
“Great, good, that’s great,” I said, nodding to him weakly in turn.
“You okay?” the other paramedic asked me, his brow furrowed in concern.
“Yeah,” I managed, not entirely honestly. “Actually, do you have some water or something I could drink?”
“Sure thing,” the young man said, leaping up on the ambulance, swinging open the doors, and returning shortly with two tall water bottles, cold and glistening with condensation.
“Thanks,” I said, eagerly accepting the bottles and downing one without stopping to breathe, then the other in short succession as the second ambulance sped away, though this one didn’t put its sirens back on. Their cargo was already gone.
As the water flowed through me, the life came back to me, as well, and though I was still sweaty and covered with the dead man’s blood, I felt infinitely better anyway.
I turned my attention to the rest of the parking lot then, which was crawling with police officers. No forensics guys yet, b
ut hopefully, they would be there soon, and others would meet the body at the morgue.
I looked around for Nina, but it took me a moment to find her. She was by her car, talking with Officer Hollister, the young man who had picked Holm and me up from the airport. The surviving goon was stuffed in the backseat of her rental, his eyes gloomy beneath his dark ski mask.
Nina had a water bottle of her own dangling in her hand at her side, half-empty, and she looked reinvigorated herself.
Hollister turned to watch as I approached, and he winced at the sight of me.
“Damn,” he cursed, shaking his head. “Tell me you’re not as bad as you look, man.”
“I’m not,” I assured him with a chuckle. “You should see the other guy.”
“He the dead one?” Hollister asked.
“Yep,” I confirmed with a nod.
“I’ll pass, then,” he said, flashing me a wide grin. “Would’ve loved to see you in action, though. Both of you.” He looked from me to Nina and back again.
“I’m sure you would,” Nina said, returning the sly gesture.
“We think this is the one who was in the security footage?” I asked, jerking my chin in the direction of the man in the backseat. We were standing a few paces enough away that I was confident he couldn’t hear us, and the windows were rolled up. Nina had at least left the air conditioner on for him, though.
“Oh, he is,” Nina said with a knowing nod. “Told me himself when I caught him. The other guy was standing lookout outside at the mall, I guess. We don’t have any footage of him. I don’t know much else. There wasn’t a lot of time to talk to him before everyone showed up.”
I breathed a sigh of relief as a lot of the tension I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding left my body, and that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach ebbed some. Finally, we were getting somewhere. Now we could work on getting to the bottom of whatever this mess was and getting Mikey back to his parents. All three of them.
“Good,” I murmured. “That’s really, really good.”
“Let’s hope so,” Nina said, pursing her lips, and I could tell that she was still thinking the worst.
