In total the drive took 28 minutes, roughly 20 longer than it should have. Upon reaching their destination they found a mid-sized row house on a side street, the exterior dark brown stucco, wide wood trim encasing the doors and windows. A free standing garage stood 10 feet from the main house, the two connected by a small breezeway.
Like most every home in the small enclave on the south-central part of the city, the home was neat, with a wrought iron fence and gate running along the front walk.
Unlike most of the others, though, there were no pumpkins lining the front porch, no fall decorations affixed to the windows. Given the dark color scheme and the lack of visible signs of life, the place looked ominous, even foreboding, despite the early morning sunshine.
Pulling up to the curb, Reed pushed the gear shift into park, the car barely ceasing to move as Glenn jerked open the passenger door. Bolting through the gap between the seats, Billie was out behind her a moment later, a black blur that Reed didn’t even attempt to slow down.
Instead he jerked open his own door and jogged around the front hood of the car, meeting them both in front of the gate. Twice he tapped at the butt of his gun as he went, not wanting to draw on a busy street, a handful of school children waiting for the bus on the corner.
“Billie and I will take the front door,” Reed said. “You watch the garage in case he or anybody else comes out the side.”
Glenn peeled away without a word, following a stone pathway through a tiny front lawn that was void of grass, the ground covered in a heavy layer of gravel. Low-slung bushes lined the front fence and the house.
Reed gave her 20 seconds to get into position, seeing her take up a post on the far corner of the house with a vantage of the entire side of the property. Matching him, she stood with one hand just a few inches from her weapon, like an old west outlaw prepared for a duel.
Stepping up the three short steps to the front door, Reed balled his hand into a fist and pounded against the heavy implement. The outside of it felt wet against his palm, the sound echoing through the house, as he paused a moment before pounding twice more.
“Agent Gilmore! This is Detective Reed Mattox, you in there?”
Dozens of times before he’d stood in similar situations, on the outside of a door waiting for someone to answer. Without fail, whenever someone was approaching the house would let him know, creaking slightly, giving away the sound of footsteps, always prefacing their approach.
Just as surely, the homes let him know when there was nobody moving about inside.
“There’s nothing doing at all in there,” Reed said, turning his head a few inches so Glenn could hear him. “Do we have anything approaching probable cause right now?”
Breaching the home of a federal agent would be a quagmire that would probably get them both fired, would certainly torch relations between all the represented agencies for the foreseeable future.
Still, given what Reed had discovered that morning, what he had seen at the hospital in the preceding days, he didn’t much care.
“Hold on,” Glenn said, freezing Reed in place. His chest tightened slightly as he lowered himself down a step, his focus on the corner of the house, waiting for Glenn to reappear.
A moment later she did so, her weapon out, gripped in both hands before her.
“We’ve got signs of forced entry on the side door. I’m going in.”
Reed’s first instinct was to reach for his gun as well, the weapon sliding free of the holster on his hip. In an instant he assumed the same position as Glenn, his right hand curled around the handle, his finger riding along the outer edge of the trigger guard. His left he kept cupped beneath it for support, both extended in front of him, his elbows locked, muzzle aimed toward the ground.
“Wait!” he yelled, the concentrated adrenaline in his system pushing the word out much louder than intended. No doubt every passerby on the street had heard him, a fact Reed could not care less about as he bounded down from the steps.
The stone path was uneven underfoot as he covered the short distance in four long strides, Billie out in front of him. He made the corner to see Glenn by the door, her weight on her right foot, her left six inches in front of it, a textbook stance before breaching.
“What?” she asked, her face twisted up in anticipation, annoyance. “I’ve got signs here.”
“I wasn’t telling you to wait for me,” Reed said, moving into position behind her. “Breach and step aside.”
She began to respond before flicking her gaze to Billie between them, frenetic energy rolling off of her in waves. She bounced in place on all four paws, every coiled muscle in her body seeming to writhe.
“On three...” Glenn said, making no further objection, offering just a small nod.
Turning her focus back to the door, she rocked on her heel once, preparing to spring her body forward as she took a deep breath.
“One...two...”
With each word she rocked back a bit more, preparing her slight frame for movement.
“Three!”
Her heel made contact between the handle and the jamb, the thin wood casing providing barely any resistance before splintering off. The sound of it filled Reed’s ears as he watched the door swing open, the interior of the house dark, no signs of life visible.
“Clear!”
Chapter Forty
The reaction was as if Billie had gained the ability to teleport. One moment she was standing in the breezeway, splitting the difference between Reed and Glenn. The next she was gone, disappearing into the depths of the house, the sound of her shoulder slamming against the edge of the door the only sign of her passing.
The sight of it gave Glenn pause, her body frozen just outside the door, waiting long enough for Reed to sprint past her into the house.
Sending Billie in first every time was far and away the worst part of having her for a partner. It wasn’t the act of her clearing a scene itself, at that there was nobody better. She could move much faster than any human could, her expert smell ferreting out things that Reed would only hope to guess at.
The part that he despised more than anything was having her exposed for those few moments upon entry. There was just no way of knowing what lay behind a closed door, whether it be a booby trap or a psychopath with a weapon, determined to start firing at the first sign of movement.
Reed was fortunate that both of his parents were fairly young and in good health. Losing Riley, his partner, his best friend, was far and away the worst thing he had ever been faced with. Three long months had passed before he felt up to regular interaction with the world again after it happened, another four before he was fully okay with shifting between the graveyard and daytime shifts.
Ten months had now passed, and not a single day passed when there wasn’t something, anything, that either reminded him of her or that he wished he could call and share with her.
Using all of that as concentrated fuel, Reed pushed himself through the side door, sprinting through a small mudroom, a washer and dryer along the wall, a drying rack set up alongside it. Following the sound of Billie’s feet on hardwood floors, he moved through a Spartan kitchen, stainless steel appliances lining the countertops.
Behind him he heard a second set of footsteps, Glenn’s square heels clicking against the ground. The smell of sawdust he noticed upon entry had faded, concentrated to the one small area around the door, bits of wood debris still hanging in the air. In their stead was a hint of Chinese food, the smell peaking by the sink and receding as he moved forward.
Reed was one step beyond the kitchen, just a few inches inside a dining room featuring only a square table and a pair of Ikea chairs, when Billie exploded into barking. Deep and baying, the bellows reverberated through the house.
Forgoing his search, Reed sprinted straight through the dining room and into a narrow hallway, abandoning his shooter’s stance so he could run unabated. Concern for his partner, urgency over what might be found, and unadulterated adrenaline propelled h
im forward, his running shoes squeaking on the floor as he went.
Twenty feet after leaving the kitchen, the hallway gave way to a living room. The ceiling opened into a high vault overhead, the room stretching the full two stories of the rest of the home in height. Around the outside of it was a matching set of brown leather furniture, a flat screen on one wall, a home stereo system on the other.
None of those things even registered with Reed.
Instead he noticed the sharp coppery scent of blood in the room, the smell so intense it seemed to hang like a cloud over everything, threatening to permeate his hair and clothes. He picked up on Billie trotting a quick line back and forth across the middle of the floor, her toenails clattering against bare wood, her gaze aimed upward.
“Oh, sweet mother of God,” Glenn said from behind him, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She remained there a moment, just a few feet from Reed, before turning to the side and beginning to heave, the sound of her retching finding Reed’s ears.
Had there been anything of substance in his system, Reed might have done the same. Had the sight before him not evoked a similar response, he may have turned and tried to push her back down the hallway, careful to preserve the integrity of the crime scene, not wanting her vomit to contaminate potential evidence.
Reed did nothing of the sort, though. Remaining rooted in place he stood and stared at the man that just 24 hours prior had come to the 8th and tried to scare Reed away, to make his presence known, to evoke fear without saying as much.
A single rope was extended up from the foot of the sofa, the texture of it rough, the surface a light tan in color. It rose at a 45 degree angle over 15 feet before being draped through the inside of a wrought iron chandelier and coming straight down, ending abruptly in a noose.
At the bottom of the noose, his body rotating just slightly, was Dan Gilmore. Still dressed in the same tie and dress shirt Reed had seen him in the day before, his shoes were off, his sleeves rolled to mid-forearm.
While awful, none of that was what had shocked Reed, had caused Glenn to lose everything in her system from the previous two days.
Hanging from the front pocket of Gilmore’s shirt was the entirety of his tongue, the top edge looking like it had been sawed away with a serrated knife. Blood had dried over his chin and the front of his shirt so thick and dark they were almost black, the first few flies beginning to buzz about.
A wide band of blood spatter was present on the floor around Gilmore’s body, the droplets dried and hard, Reed knowing it was only a matter of time before they began to mildew.
“Down,” Reed said, shaking himself awake, transitioning from stunned first responder to detective.
On command Billie fell silent, coming to a stop by his feet. Together they continued to stare at the scene before them, both giving Glenn the dignity of not turning to look her way, waiting until she came forward and joined them, standing three across.
“Think maybe the FBI should extend a little less autonomy to some of their agents?” Glenn whispered.
Beside her, Reed nodded. “The man was a first class egomaniac, but he didn’t deserve this.”
He paused, again sweeping his gaze over the scene before them. “Hell, nobody does.”
Chapter Forty-One
The small metal pellet rattled back and forth inside the aluminum can as The Kid shook it, holding it at waist height and flicking his wrist back and forth. He moved it no more than a handful of times, his head on a swivel, watching for anybody that might be nearby. Mid-morning on a Tuesday, he didn’t expect anyone to be out, the groundskeeper having given up for the winter ahead, allowing the grass to grow a little shaggier, leaves to begin piling up.
Still, he had to be at least quasi-careful. Even if what he was doing was a far cry from the things he’d done the last couple of nights, it was still a crime.
Using the toe of his shoe, The Kid pushed aside the small pile of grass clippings and dead leaves that had piled up at the foot of the headstone. Cut from plain grey granite, it just barely came to The Kid’s knee, the edges rough and unpolished, same for the back.
Only the front had been buffed to a mirrored shine, the name Marco Sanz chiseled into it, the deep-set letters painted black to stand out against the slate backdrop. Beneath them were the dates July 13, 1986 – October 23, 2014 using the same typeset and color scheme.
Nothing else adorned the stone. No written epitaph, no pictures of angel wings or hands folded in prayer. Just a name and two dates.
All that The Kid could afford.
At the bottom of the stone was a small smear of black, time and weather having stripped much of it away. Dropping to a knee, The Kid held the spray paint out in front of him and in large block letters wrote a single word.
BIG.
The year before he had used a Sharpie marker, even gone as far as to write “MISS YOU BIG” in the same oversized script he now used, but the ink had barely survived the year on the polished stone.
There was no way that would happen this time.
“Hey, Big,” The Kid whispered, ignoring the smell of spray paint and fumes that filled his nose. He told himself that was the reason his eyes watered as he stared at the front of the stone, reaching out and running his fingertips over the name carved into it.
In his 25 years, The Kid had come to find that few words were more misappropriated in the English language than brother. He’d heard people refer to guys they played on a sports team with, went to school with, served in the military alongside, as brothers. Witnessed people of the same race use it.
Marco Sanz had been none of those things to The Kid.
He had been so much more.
“How you been?” The Kid whispered, bringing a hand to his face. He pressed his thumb and forefinger down over his eyes, feeling the dampness against his skin, before lowering them and pinching the end of his nose, more moisture meeting his grip.
“I know it’s been a little while since I came out to see you, but I’ve been busy, you know? Doing everything I promised you I would.”
The Kid could feel the wet earth seeping up through the knee of his jeans as he leaned forward, propping his elbow on his opposite leg. Just a few feet from the headstone he allowed tears to drip silently down his cheeks, staring at the last vestige of the only real family he had ever had.
“And it’s going so well,” The Kid said. “All that time, all that research, it’s been perfect. You’d be so proud.”
He paused, just the slightest hint of a flicker pulling at the right corner of his mouth.
“I almost got ‘em all too. The detectives, the warden, even that FBI agent you hated so much. Made sure they got what was coming to ‘em.”
All mirth fled from his features, replaced by a stony visage. Red veins permeated the whites of his eyes like spider webs as he stared at the headstone, the corded muscles of his neck twitching slightly.
“Just got the one more,” he said. “Of everybody, got to make sure he gets his.”
Chapter Forty-Two
“What in the hell made you two twits think you could enter the home of an FBI agent?!”
Twin veins bulged on either side of Supervisory Special Agent Devon Cohn’s forehead, snaking down from his strawberry blonde hair that was cut short and pushed to the side. With them came an unhealthy rise in blood pressure, painting his features bright red, his ruddy cheeks appearing like they might pop at any moment.
Because the man had just lost an agent, Reed was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, reasoning that everybody had their own way of dealing with grief. The antics, and the ongoing outburst, though, were both working to shorten the amount of leeway he was willing to extend considerably.
“Mr. Cohn,” Glenn said, taking the lead, “we did notify your office this morning that we had credible evidence that Mr. Gilmore could be in danger.”
“First of all,” Cohn snapped, cutting her off, “Dan Gilmore and I are both agents, thank you.
“And sec
ond, you were both told that our agents have a certain amount of leeway, but you thought it would be a good idea to come here and breach his home anyway?”
With each word his voice seemed to grow louder, the man starting to believe in his own bravado. Behind him a trio of criminalists from the Columbus field office of the FBI was at work on the scene, Gilmore’s body having been lowered to the floor, but nothing else touched.
Adorned in blue paper suits with FBI stamped across the back in yellow letters six inches tall, each pretended not to notice as Cohn bandied on, casting sideways glances his way, their expressions neutral.
Reed found their restraint admirable, far outpacing his own.
“And to bring a dog in here, too?!” Cohn yelled. He waved a hand to Billie as he yelled, his voice rising to the point of hysterics. “How stupid can you people be to let a damn mutt near a crime scene?”
“Detective,” Reed said, watching the criminalists work, seeing both Cohn and Glenn swing their attention toward him in his periphery.
“I’m sorry, you say something?” Cohn asked, leaning forward at the waist, incredulity that Reed dare interrupt him on his features.
“Yes, agent,” Reed said, sliding his gaze from the crime scene crew to the man across from him. “She is a detective, and you will refer to her as such.”
Somehow Cohn’s face managed to grow a shade deeper in color, his chest swelling as he drew in a breath of air, ready to push forward again.
He didn’t get the chance.
“We entered the house because, like Investigator Glenn said, we had rock solid evidence that the man was in danger. We warned your office and we tried to contact him. When neither worked, we showed the level of concern you should have and came to check on him.”
With each word Reed seemed to gain steam, the shock of finding Gilmore’s body receding from within, replaced with growing acrimony for whoever it was that was targeting law enforcement agents.
The Kid: A Suspense Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 3) Page 18
