That Way Lies Madness: A Florida Action Adventure Novel (Scott Jarvis Private Investigator Book 8)

by Scott Cook

  We waited in silence for a long minute. Hearing nothing, Foster tapped me and pointed to the two doors to our right. We moved quickly, flinging the doors open one at a time and clearing each room. We looked in closets, under the beds and found nothing. The third bedroom was equally empty, although this one was set up as a home gym. The master, however, was a different story.

  Another man lay sprawled in front of the king sized bed. He also had a pulse and was pale in the face. However, there was no sign of Cynthia.

  “She’s not here,” Foster said with a hard edge in his voice and held up a piece of paper.

  “Another fucking note…” I cranked. “What’s it say?”

  “It says, ‘You’re too late, Foster. She’s with me. Oh, give my love to Lisa.’” He read and chuffed. “From Shade, of course.”

  “Goddamn this guy!” I exclaimed. “What the hell else is he gonna do?”

  Wish I hadn’t asked.

  Chapter 23

  From the case file of Gonzalez and her faithful stooge

  Lisa’s journal entry 5 - continued

  Once again, we had to deal with the police. This time, though, there seemed to be some understanding of what was up. Celebration had its own police force, but they were also joined by the Polk County Sheriff’s department. Both of these were in touch with Orlando, and by now, Shade and his deeds were known from Orlando to the Tampa Bay area. Probably going to be national news soon, too.

  An ambulance arrived as well, along with a crime scene unit. By the time the CSI people showed up the two security dudes had already come around. They seemed none the worse for wear, except one of them said it felt like he had a major hang over.

  “So what happened?” Foster asked when the two guys had been propped up on the sofa and given a glass of water and looked over by the EMTs.

  “Let us ask the questions, please, Mr. Foster,” Lieutenant Tony Drax of the Polk County Sheriff’s department stated. “This is an official investigation.”

  Foster looked peeved, “You’re gonna pull that shit on me, Drax? This official investigation involves us, too.”

  “We still want to handle it our way, Foster.”

  Plainly these guys knew each other. Although there didn’t seem to be any open hostility, I did get the sense that some pecker issues might be at work. Then again, maybe that’s unfair. That’s what people always say when a couple of men get their hackles up, isn’t it?

  When we chicks get snippy over something, it’s because we’re bitches or on the rag or whatever. People can simply not get along or balk at one another’s attempt to take control of a situation without it involving genitals can’t they?

  I should bring this up to Scott. He’ll probably tell me that he’s written a monograph on the subject, lol.

  I miss him…

  “Okay, detective, then you ask Troy and Derrick here what happened,” Foster grumped.

  “We was just hanging out,” Troy began. He was a well set black guy in his late twenties I think. He had close-cropped hair and the bearing of former military. “Derrick and I were watching a little TV and Mrs. Bartlett was upstairs.”

  “We checked on her every fifteen minutes or so when she wasn’t down with us,” Derrick, a somewhat pudgy white guy a little older than Troy said. “Everything seemed fine.”

  “Yeah, every half hour or so, one of us goes out and checks around the house and scopes the hood,” Troy went on. “Just to see what’s up. What’s changed and that sort of thing.”

  “We hear this noise,” Derrick cut in. “Like a thump or somethin’.”

  Troy nodded, “Yeah. So I send Derrick upstairs and I do a circuit of the house. Nothing seems weird, so I come back out here and then… I don’t know exactly… then I’m coming to and yall are here.”

  “Same for me,” Derrick said. “I went upstairs and asked Mrs. Bartlett if she heard or saw anything. She says no, and then we just look at each other for a second. She turns all pale and looks like she’s gonna pull a faint. I take a step toward her and everything just goes black.”

  “Probably a fentanyl derivative,” Foster said thoughtfully.

  “Isn’t that a pain med?” One of the Celebration cops asked.

  “It is, but incapacitating agents can be made from fentanyl derivatives such as remifentanil and carfentanyl,” Foster explained. “The Russians used it in 2002 in a theater held by hostages.”

  “Our crime scene team has chemical sniffers,” Drax said impatiently. “They’ll let us know. So that’s all you guys remember?”

  The two men nodded and looked a little crestfallen. They had failed to protect Cynthia, after all. I couldn’t blame them, though. Shade was out of their league, no doubt. I just hoped he wasn’t out of ours.

  Foster drove us back to his office. There really wasn’t much to say. Nothing the cops asked really made any difference. Shade had gassed the place and made off with Cynthia. Why was another question, although she did have a lot of money.

  I walked back over to the parking lot under I-4 and decided to go back to the house. It was mid-afternoon and I wanted to check on the boys and give Scott a call. He had landed in Warwick several hours ago and was probably either out investigating or doing something fun with his family.

  I headed down to Anderson and took a left, driving along the 408 until I reached Conway and took a right. Traffic was fairly heavy, even slightly off the beaten path, so I wasn’t surprised when I stopped at the intersection of Michigan totally surrounded by cars.

  What did surprise me was when Warner Grayson stepped out of the passenger seat of a white minivan behind me, tapped lightly on my passenger window and made motions for me to unlock the door.

  “Colonel…” I muttered in bewilderment as he got in.

  “Good afternoon, Lisa,” He said charmingly. “Mind if I ride along?”

  “Uhm… I guess not… but why didn’t you just come to the office?”

  “I wanted to be sure you weren’t being followed or watched,” He said. “I need to speak with you privately… and ask a favor.”

  I glanced at him sideways just as the light turned green.

  “As you are aware,” he started, “Shade has kidnapped Cynthia Bartlett.”

  “Of course,’ I replied. “I was at her house not long ago. How do you know?”

  He smiled thinly, “We pay close attention, Lisa. Anyway, we have reason to believe that Shade is building toward something. Something… that will pit him directly against or directly affect Scott.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that, “Like what?”

  “Either a direct showdown, wherein Shade will give himself every advantage… or…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Or he’s going to try and go after you.”

  I knew I wouldn’t like it. Although I couldn’t say I was all that surprised.

  “I don’t think he’ll try to harm you,” Grayson stated. “More that he’ll use you as a lever or as bait.”

  “So you’re going to protect me?”

  Grayson eyed me for a long moment, “That’s an option.”

  I chuffed, “The other option is you want to let me get snatched so you can get Shade. You want to use me as bait, in other words.”

  Grayson sighed, “The only way to protect you is to make it obvious. Multiple agents working around the clock. Something Shade can’t counter. If we do that, then he chooses another way to go at Scott.”

  I was silent for a long moment after turning left onto Lee Vista Boulevard. I had a pretty good idea of what he wanted to do. Finally I spoke up.

  “Colonel… how can you guarantee that A, I won’t be harmed and B, you can track Shade after he gets his dirty paws on me?”

  “Several ways,” Grayson said. “I want to plant a GPS tracker on you. Second, I’m fairly certain that Scott is closing in on Shade. Every move Shade makes gives Scott more to work with.”

  “Jarvis’ Law…”

  “What?”

  I smiled and explained Sc
ott’s hypothesis about tracking down an adversary.

  “Interesting…” Grayson commented. “Makes sense. A lot of sense. In fact, I’ve seen that work on many an occasion. I’ve just never put it into words before.”

  “Suppose I get searched?”

  “You will be. But we’ve got some interesting tools that make it hard to find. All we need in fact is a pair of sneakers.”

  “And suppose I get raped or murdered?” I asked a little heatedly. “Can you guarantee that won’t happen, Colonel? I know how you government people think. The individual is less important than the goal. I don’t want to be cannon fodder for this shit.”

  “I understand,” He said gently. “I can promise that we’ll do all we can. We’re a well-funded, well-staffed and well-trained team, Lisa. Shade is just one lunatic. Sooner or later, he goes down. With your help, it can be sooner.”

  I could only imagine what Scott would say if he were here. I thought about it for a long time. Essentially, I was being staked out in a clearing in order to draw the tiger. The truth was that Grayson was probably right, though.

  “Okay,” I said. “What do I do?”

  Yeah… never volunteer…

  It was just after sunset when I got the call. I was more than a little surprised, seeing as how Scott and I were told we weren’t’ needed anymore.

  “Hey, Lisa…” It was Marie Franco’s unsettled voice. “Are you busy?”

  “Uhm… not really,” I replied. “Just about to start dinner. Are you and Paul okay?”

  “Sort of…” She said, sounding nervous and uncertain.

  “What’s up, Marie?”

  She sighed and tried to laugh but it just sounded strained, “A lot of stuff has happened… and we’re not sure Paul’s guys can handle things. We talked it over and we want you and Scott to help us out again. We’ll trow yiz some bread, of course.”

  I frowned and went to let the dogs back inside, “Marie… Scott’s not here and I’m just one person. Paul’s got however many bruisers on his payroll. I’m sure you’re fine.”

  “Not really…” she said hesitantly. “Some shit has happened, like I said. Two of our guys, Vito and Jimmy went to the store about an hour ago and we ain’t heard from em’ … it’s just Paul, me and our other two guys… I don’t’ know, I’m just not liking this shit, y’know what I’m sayin’?. Could you at least come by and talk to Paul?”

  I was feeling a bit annoyed at this. It just didn’t seem like Marie to sound so neurotic.

  “Hey, there’s a couple hundred in it for ya’, just for swingin’ by and having a drink,” She tried to sound more like herself but it still seemed forced. She must be more worried than she wanted to let on.

  I chuckled, “Okay, Marie. I’ll take a ride over. Give me like a half hour.”

  We hung up and I went into the bedroom to change. I put on jeans, a white long sleeved cotton top and my sneakers. The same ones I’d implanted Grayson’s tracker in.

  The thing was actually pretty ingenious. It was about an inch square and no thicker than a quarter. All I had to do was peel up the insert of the shoe, place the device in there and then use a little shoe glue to reset the insert. When I put the shoe on, I couldn’t even feel the tracker.

  I drove across to Hunter’s Creek and even as I pulled into the Francos’ neighborhood, I started to get suspicious. There was something odd about the way she sounded. Suddenly I was very glad I was wearing my spy tennies.

  Instead of simply pulling into the driveway like a schmuck, I parked on the next street over from their house and crept through the yard that bordered theirs. The two yards were separated by a seven foot privacy fence, luckily with the horizontal pieces on the side of the house I was at. I was also lucky because nobody seemed to be home at the place I was trespassing on.

  I stepped up onto the middle two by four and peeked over the fence. There were lights on inside the Franco house on both floors. That was a good sign, I thought and also suddenly thought that maybe I was just being paranoid.

  “The reason I think everybody is out to get me,” Scott would say, “is because they usually were.”

  I turned on the night vision monocular and settled it over my left eye. A quick scan of the backyard showed nobody lurking, unless they were very well hidden. I bit my lip and hopped the fence, landing in a crouch on the other side next to a Bird of Paradise tree.

  I drew out my Glock 43 9mm and racked the slide. Then I patted my other pocket where I’d put a pair of small screwdrivers, one of each.

  “Success is seventy-five percent preparation, ten percent luck, ten percent persistence, three finely chopped garlic cloves, a tablespoon of lime juice and one blowjob,” I could hear Scott saying in my head. I could even see him grinning at me when he did.

  “A blowjob?” I thought back to the phantom.

  “Hey,” he said with a laugh, “I’ve never felt like a failure when that’s goin’ on, baby.”

  I had to clear my head and bite on a knuckle to keep from laughing. Even when he wasn’t actually here Scott was making me giggle.

  I was going to work on the assumption that something was wrong. I didn’t know what, but it was something. I was going into an unknown situation without any information and at a distinct disadvantage.

  “What do I do now, baby?” I whispered to the warm and oddly silent night.

  “Even the odds,” Scott thought more firmly this time. About time he started taking this more seriously. “How can a blind man fight a sighted man?”

  “What…?” I cranked in my head and then I got it. “Oh! Lure the sighted man into a darkened room… even the odds.”

  I swear I felt a ghostly pat on my butt. I grinned and moved toward the house, taking careful steps and using my monocular to make sure I didn’t step on or kick anything.

  I crept along the side to the electrical service. The box was closed, of course, and a wire tag thingy prevented any honest people from getting inside. Not being one of those, of course, I pushed the shank of my flat head screwdriver into the loop of wire and snapped it off. Then I slowly opened the cover, praying it wouldn’t creak or something and flipped the master breaker off.

  The lights and the air conditioning stopped and the night seemed even quieter than it had. I stood stock still, listening hard and scanning with my night vision. Nobody made a protest or any kind of sound that I could hear.

  I took a deep breath, “Okay, here we go…”

  The electrical box was next to the side door to the garage, which I tried to open. It was locked, of course, but I did have a screwdriver. It was small and thin, and if the deadbolt wasn’t locked, it might work.

  Just slide it between the jamb and the knob and… the hasp pushed in and I was able to pull the door open. Of course, it squelched as the rubber gasket and the door came apart. Not too loud, and I had to hope that it wasn’t loud enough to alert anybody.

  The garage had two cars in it, one was Marie’s and the other an old muscle car of some kind. No one lurked in here either… well, except for me, that is.

  I made it to the inside door and that one was unlocked. It led into the kitchen which was empty. Slowly I made my way out into the living room and knew things were not right at all.

  Two men lay on the tiled floor. I could clearly see that they were dead. My monocular gave me a bright picture of the bloody front of their shirts. I went over and touched their carotid arteries just to be sure. There was no help.

  I gripped my weapon tighter and began going up the stairs. I was nearly to the top and…

  Creeeaaak…

  I had to bite my tongue to keep from swearing aloud. I stood perfectly still, looking right and left along the hall at the top of the stairs and seeing nothing. There were no movements and no sounds at all.

  “That you, Lisa?” A voice asked from the darkness.

  It might have been a man, but it was so soft I couldn’t tell. All I did know was that it sent a shiver creeping up the middle of my back. It also soun
ded like it came from the right.

  I swallowed hard and took the last few steps up to the landing and turned right. I slowly crept forward, placing each foot on the hardwood and praying it didn’t creak again.

  The door to what must be the master bedroom was open. On the bed, propped up against the headboard sat Paul and Marie Franco. They looked alive, at least.

  “Hey, you guys…” I took three steps into the room before I realized that they had tape across their mouths.

  I’d fucked up. From behind me I heard an almost inaudible sound, like somebody rubbing cotton balls across rabbit fur or something. But it was there and I knew true fear at that point. When the voice spoke, I damn near jumped right out of my skin.

  “How gallant you are, rushing to their rescue,” A voice I’d heard earlier said. “And how clever to kill the power… just as I thought you’d do.”

  I turned slowly around. A man stood there with a smile on his face. He was only a few inches taller than me. He was broad in the shoulders and had heavy black hair on top of a handsome face.

  “Shade, I presume,” I said with a level of calm I definitely didn’t feel.

  He chuckled, “Welcome to the party. It’s too bad Scott isn’t here, too… but we can fix that, can’t we?”

  Chapter 24

  I felt sick to my stomach as I drove back toward my parents’ house. Just as I reached the intersection of Warwick Ave. and Post Road, Wayne called.

  “What’d you find out?” I asked.

  “Nice to talk to you too,” Wayne joked.

  “Sorry man… shit’s getting’ real over here,” I replied.

  He must have sensed something in my voice because he got serious, “You said we need to talk… maybe I should ask if you found anything out?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m headed back your way. I’m coming down Allens Avenue.”