Warning Shot

by Dustin Stevens

  Stepping out of the bathroom, I pace across to the bed and take up the phone, grabbing it without bothering to check the name on the Caller ID.

  “Hey, man.”

  “What’s up?” Jeff Swinger asks. In his voice is the slightest hint of concern. “Just saw I had a missed call.”

  “Yeah, sorry about calling so late,” I reply. “I know it’s a Sunday night and all.”

  “You also know I don’t sleep,” he snaps back. “So what’s up?”

  The comment isn’t the complete truth, but it isn’t entirely off. The man doesn’t really sleep. Instead, he pushes himself – in every way possible – until he basically passes out.

  In the field on a mission. Hanging out in our backyard after a barbecue. A hundred other scenarios ranging the spectrum in between.

  The man has one speed, anybody who has ever so much as looked at him being able to verify it.

  “Need a favor,” I reply. Turning away from the bed, I walk over to the front window. Using a finger, I peel back the thin curtain to see my car and one other in the lot, the owner’s dented Pontiac sitting in its usual spot at the end.

  “Shoot.”

  “Might not end up being anything at all,” I reply, “but tomorrow I need to go out of town for a while.”

  The words are barely out of my mouth before he responds, “Where are you going?”

  A tiny hint of annoyance at the response, at the underlying sentiment, rises in me, dissipating as fast as it arrives. As I’ve told myself a thousand times this week, my friends are merely looking out for me. Any questions they ask are out of concern, not oppression.

  Opening my mouth to respond, I realize how much has transpired since we last spoke. Riffling back through the events of the day, I try to find a good place to start before giving up on it and going clear back to the beginning.

  Starting with my visit to the Central District precinct this morning, I fill him in on everything, culminating with my talk with Lucero a few minutes earlier. Start to finish, it takes me six minutes, all of them spent in front of the window, staring out at the parking lot.

  Once I finish, he sits in silence for several moments, processing things before finally saying, “You sure you don’t want one of us to go with you?”

  No questions about if I should go or what answers I hope to find there. Not a hint of mistrust in his voice.

  “Thanks, but I’ll be fine,” I reply.

  “You sure?” he asks. “I’m off tomorrow.”

  “I know, that’s why I’m calling now instead of catching you at the base in the morning,” I answer. “And yeah, it should be okay. The guy seemed pretty wary, might not be a great idea to roll up en masse.”

  This he also takes a moment to ponder before eventually asking, “Okay, so what’s the favor?”

  The pizza from the no-name stand along the Pacific Beach Boardwalk was saltier than I was used to. Loaded with pepperoni, grease had leaked from the sheet of wax paper it was wrapped in. Running the length of my index finger, it pooled along the cracks in the palm of my hand.

  A minor inconvenience compared to the divine taste it offered.

  Still working the last of it around in my mouth, I used a napkin to attempt to wipe my hands clean.

  “At least the pizza is good, right?” Mira asked, the words distorted as she crunched on a bit of crust herself.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I replied, scrubbing away the last of the orange residue on my palm. “I thought that was the best $14 PB&J I ever tasted.”

  Coughing out a laugh beside me, Mira held the last bit of her pizza a few inches from her mouth. “Yeah, sorry again about that. One of the girls at work recommended the place.”

  The spot was one of many that had arrived just in the two short years since I’d relocated to San Diego. Meant to capitalize on the burgeoning market of trendy comfort food, the place had somehow managed to take something as simple as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and monetize it to the hilt.

  Different types of bread. Various varieties of jams and nut butters and honeys to spread across them.

  All for the bargain price of more than what I usually paid for a large pizza.

  I shuddered to even think what my mama would say about such a thing.

  “Naw, all good,” I replied. “My only thing is, they must be paying social workers a lot better than I realized.”

  Again, Mira let out a laugh. Opting against a reply, she pushed in the last of her pizza, both of us falling into silence as we walked on.

  Just minutes after sunset, the sand beneath us was still warm. Both of us barefooted, we each walked carrying our shoes in hand, white sand splashed liberally across our toes.

  In the air were handfuls of different scents. Funnel cakes and pizza. Grilled meat and beer.

  Up ahead, we could see the lights of the small amusement park demarcating the end of the boardwalk. Every minute or so there would be a spike of cheering, no doubt from riders on the wooden rollercoaster nestled right along the beachfront.

  Keeping my gaze turned toward the water, I watched as white caps rolled in one after another. Arriving in three-foot swells, they slapped at the packed sand, rushing forward before being drawn back.

  Not until I heard Mira wad up her own wax paper did I turn back to see her going through the same progression I had, attempting to cleanse away the remnants of our impromptu dessert.

  “Better?” I asked.

  “Much,” Mira replied.

  “Could be worse,” I answered. “The other day Ross was telling me the new thing is avocado toast.”

  “Which is-“

  “Literally just avocado and toast,” I replied. “You take a ninety-nine cent loaf of plain white bread and a five dollar bag of avocados-“

  “And you turn it into a hundred bucks,” Mira finished. “Genius.”

  Glancing her way, I smiled. “Yeah, if you’re the one doing the selling.”

  Meeting my gaze, Mira matched the grin a moment before dropping her eyes to the ground. A few stray strands of dark hair hung down on either side of her face as she kicked at the sand.

  To say the evening had been completely at ease would be an overstatement. More than once there had been awkward breaks. Pregnant pauses where it was clear one of us was holding back, not wanting to stumble upon a potential conversation land mine.

  No mention had been made about dating from either one of us. Not about anybody else we might have been seeing or even any overt mentions of us as a couple.

  For the most part, it had been largely catching up, two years providing more than enough fodder to get us by.

  As best I could tell, the bulk of her time since we parted ways had been spent on racquetball. The first year trying to secure a spot on the U.S. National Team, the most recent on rehabbing from the knee injury she’d sustained in the last qualifier before the Pan-Am Games.

  An injury she showed no signs of, moving with the same graceful ease I remembered.

  For me, things had been a bit more intense, though to her credit, she hadn’t pressed too hard on the parts I wasn’t able to share, be it by choice or government mandate.

  “But that’s actually not what I meant,” she said. “Or, at least, not just what I meant.”

  A cleft appeared between my brows as I stared toward the ground before me, locked in a parallel pose to hers. “About?”

  “About it being better,” she replied. “Yeah, the pizza was good, but I meant it’s better out here. Less crazy.”

  “Ah,” I replied, dipping my chin slightly in understanding. “Quieter, for sure.”

  “Yeah,” she whispered. “Quieter. Better for talking.”

  A tiny bit of the same ripple I’d felt sitting outside of the restaurant two hours before rose through my core. A thin trickle, it passed across my chest, dissipating as suddenly as it appeared.

  The decision to make our way out onto the sand wasn’t as much a decision as a response to circumstance. With each passing mom
ent, the place had gotten louder and noisier. Every new person that had shoved their way in had heightened the animosity of our server, the young woman making it quite clear if we weren’t ordering another sandwich, we could be on our way at any time.

  Once outside, the smell of pizza had called to both of us, an appeal to the unstated facts that neither of us were full or were quite ready for the night to end.

  At least, I knew I wasn’t.

  “Uh-oh,” I said, making sure she heard a hint of levity in my tone. “Does this mean we need to talk?”

  Beside me, there was no response for nearly half a minute. Long enough that I began to second guess the comment, thoughts of issuing an apology or trying to further explain coming to mind.

  Thoughts that evaporated as she came to a stop, turning to face me square. Her features neutral, her gaze met mine.

  “Yeah. I think we do.”

  Turn the page for a sneak peek of Battle Cry, part 6 of the My Mira Saga.

  Sneak Peek

  Battle Cry, My Mira Series Book 6

  Prologue

  I’m not sure how I know. Like the words to a song I haven’t heard in ages or the ending of a movie I stumble across late at night on cable, the pattern is already ingrained in my mind, the outcome sealed long before reaching the conclusion.

  As if imprinted on me so long before that the origin has ceased being of importance, cast aside into the ethereal abyss that the mind creates for all that it doesn’t deem worthy of preserving.

  The instant I hear the sound, the clear din of an engine approaching, every nerve ending in my body draws taut. My senses sharpen, picking up on the slightest shifts around me.

  The diminishing light inside the room. The weak rattle of an air conditioning unit from next door. The smell of dust and cleaning product in the air.

  Perched on the edge of the bed, I sit ramrod straight, counting off seconds. A sheen of sweat covers my skin, the residual light of day reflecting from it, though I am not nervous.

  The point for that has come and gone.

  Nor am I angry. Or sad. Or really feeling much of anything beyond the tiniest bit of relief, knowing that this inevitability was coming. In a way, I’m just glad to get it over with, to put this behind me forever.

  Fingers splayed over the tops of my thighs, I hear as the brakes moan slightly, bringing the approaching vehicle to a halt. As the engine cuts out a moment later.

  As a door wrenches open and footsteps crunch across the parking lot, the mixture of dirt and gravel allowing each one to ring out. Hearing them, I am able to track my visitor’s movement, imposing them on the images in my mind, knowing exactly where they stand at any given moment.

  My breathing increases slightly, my pulse picking up, thrumming through my temples. Still, I remain motionless on the edge of the bed, watching as a shadow passes by the threadbare curtain hanging over the window at the front of the room.

  Two steps later, all sound ceases. The world seems to hold its breath a moment, punctuating it with a single tap against the door.

  Waiting until it dies away, until I am sure nothing more is coming, I press my hands down onto my legs, using them to leverage myself upright.

  And barely make it to my feet before all Hell breaks loose.

  Chapter One

  For the second time in as many days, Detective Malcolm Marsh’s day starts on the edge of a crime scene. A site where a life ended in the most unnatural of ways. A spot requiring his expertise to try and determine what took place and why.

  Working out of the Central District precinct, it is a bit unusual for such things to happen back to back, but not unheard of.

  What is is the fact that this looks closer to a massacre than anything he’s ever seen before.

  Standing with his feet planted in the outskirts of the hardwood floor lining the entire first story of the house, Marsh’s hands rest on his hips. The tail of his suit coat bunches behind either wrist. On the back end of a day that began twenty-five hours earlier, his tie has gone through the various stages of loosening before finally being cast aside prior to entering.

  His second visit to the home after initially arriving seven hours earlier, the place looks only nominally less macabre without the assorted chaos of the night before. Gone around the dozen criminalists in their white paper suits scouring every available surface. Ditto the medical examiner making the perfunctory rounds.

  Missing even are the half-dozen victims, their bodies splayed in various positions, spread through the living room, kitchen, and even the backyard.

  In the wake of all that, the home has settled into an eerie silence. The first pale shafts of morning light filter in through the side windows, casting everything in a ghostly pallor.

  Crime scene markers are placed in various positions. Tiny white tents arranged in haphazard clusters. Pools of blood stain the floor in misshapen amoebas. Streaks of it paint the walls and various surfaces.

  The scent of it is so strong in the air, if there was anything in Marsh’s stomach, it would have been forced up by now.

  When the call had first come in the night before, Marsh’s initial reaction was that it sounded like a drug deal gone bad. Perhaps playing a bit to stereotype, he had heard the location of Chula Vista and assumed that someone had either gotten offended or tried to scour a quick payday.

  When that hadn’t worked out as planned, things had gotten violent. Shots were fired. Lives were lost.

  Maybe a bit cliché, but far from the first time Marsh had seen such a thing play out.

  Arriving an hour later, it had taken no more than an instant inside the home to discover how wrong he’d been.

  This being yet another incident all relating back to the case that seems to have dominated his every waking thought for more than a week. The very same case he was out in El Cajon working when he was first alerted as to what happened.

  Front to back, the room Marsh stands in is more than thirty feet in distance. Nearly the entire length of the home, it ends at a partial wall along the back, an open doorway leading into the kitchen area.

  The front half of the area is a living room. A couch sits against the wall. A battered coffee table rests before it, a woven rug on the floor underneath.

  Further down, the open floorplan gives way to a dining area, a single wooden table with six matching chairs dominating the space.

  Hardwood flooring covers the entire expanse. A couple of bland pieces of artwork hang on the walls. A few knickknacks rest on the coffee table.

  The sort of place that looks like a snapshot from a different time. A home that was probably rented furnished and the tenant opted against adding to many individual touches, not planning to stay on long.

  One more task for Marsh to look into after leaving later this morning.

  Standing in the small barren patch between the living and dining areas, Marsh has his back to the wall. His head turned to the left, he begins his assessment just inside the front door.

  An entrance that was blocked last night by the remains of a spindly young man with pale skin and receding hair. A few feet before him was a second man, this one much larger, his physique looking to be a combination of serious gym time and equally serious pharmaceutical enhancement.

  Both were shot through the head. The blood spatter and position of their bodies indicated the shooter was standing precisely where Marsh now is.

  Sweeping his focus in the opposite direction, Marsh skips past the barren stretch of wallpaper before him. He moves beyond the banister of the staircase and on to the small opening separating the kitchen from the rest of the room.

  Piled there was a pair of bodies. A younger, smaller one flat on his back, his knees bent out to the side. Facedown atop him was an enormous man resembling a barrel flipped onto its side. Together, the two of them were stacked more than two feet in height. Enough that it was almost impossible to pass through, the criminalist needing to step outside and walk clear around the house to access either side.

  B
ased on their positioning, Marsh would venture that the first man through was also shot from the exact position he is standing in. Another headshot, confirmed once they were finally able to get the larger man wrestled off of him.

  After that is where the narrative gets a bit messy.

  Taking a step forward, Marsh lets out a slow sigh. As the air flees his lungs, he can feel his shoulders sag. A bit of the resolve he feels goes with it.

  Eleven days ago, things were looking up. A domestic dispute turned deadly, the killer a local Navy SEAL, the location the most highly visible in all of San Diego.

  A quick solve and indictment with plenty of television time. The sort of thing ideal for a man such as Marsh that had put in his requisite time on the streets and was looking to ascend.

  Police administration for the time being, with the plan of bigger things to come.

  What started as a few base inconsistencies soon turned into so much more. Players and motivations he could have never imagined. A site map that was fast covering the entire greater San Diego region.

  Moving as close to the kitchen entrance as he dare without disturbing the scene, Marsh pulls up. He emits a second sigh as he stares on, superimposing the vivid images from the night before into his psyche.

  While the first three victims played pretty true-to-form, starting with the enormous man sprawled atop the other is where things really went sideways.

  At some point in the initial firefight, a second shooter had arrived. Their first victim had been found out by the fence enclosing the rear of the property. Unlike the others, cause of death was blunt force trauma, a wicked shot to the crown of the head.

  A blow intended to be quiet, allowing the shooter to approach without being seen. To get within two feet of the large victim, gunshot stippling obvious across his shaved head.

  While not the easiest to unravel, all of that had paled in comparison to the last layer of the story. The final victim sprawled flat on his back in the kitchen, wounds from both shooters on his body.