by PT Reade
I prayed he wouldn’t try anything. The gun wavered in my hands. I gripped it tighter.
“It’s over and you know it. Don’t do anything stupid, Damian. Drop the bat and turn around, face the wall!”
He spat something unintelligible beneath his breath and sagged visibly. The bat dropped with a clatter. The kid eyed me from beneath hooded brows. If looks could kill he would have murdered me on the spot. Again he mumbled something, before finally, reluctantly, stepping to the brick wall.
I took another deep breath and moved forward. As a cop in New York, I had detained plenty of suspects. I knew the stop-and-frisk procedure. With the gun firmly in my right hand, I moved to search Damian.
“Christina, I need you to call the police. Do it now.”
I reached Damian and forced him to place his hands against the wall. He fidgeted under the grip of my free hand while the gun stayed close against his body. My head still spun and each movement was like hot iron in my brain.
“Christina, are you listening?”
She was on her feet now. Eyeing Damian in a curious way. No more fear. No more terror. Just curiosity. And something else. Anger.
“Christina?”
She stepped forward.
“You sick son-of-a-bitch.!” Christina spat. “Do you know what you did to my life? Do you know—”
“Christina! Stop it, back off!”
But her fear had fully mutated into hatred. She moved closer again, confident now. Months of frustration finally bubbling to the surface. “You bastard! Everything I tried to build and you took it away! Do you even understand? Do you care?!” She hammered on Damian’s back, rage overwhelming her.
I brought my arm up to push the woman away. “Christina, no! Get back—”
Damian, twisted under my grip.
The blade came out of nowhere. I barely saw the flicker of metal before it darted past my chest and sliced the soft flesh of my right forearm. I cried out, my arm going numb. The gun fell from my hand and clattered to the ground as I stumbled.
No!
Christina staggered back in shock.
Damian turned and slashed wildly with the knife. Again and again. I dodged the weapon but my swimming balance made me stumble over a trash bag.
I hit the alley floor hard, the breath rocketing from my lungs. My gun was there–only three feet away. I reached for the Beretta with my left hand, but Damian kicked it away.
He came at me with the knife again, and I rolled to the side, dodging it. I then brought my right foot around in desperation. It caught him in the shin. He buckled, and when he went to one knee, I kicked at him from the ground. My shoe caught him in the forehead, and he went sprawling backward.
I tried to stand, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. My head felt like mush and the alley was spinning. The blood from the wound to my head had soaked my shirt, and now there was a warm flow of crimson from my forearm too.
I scrambled to my hands and knees. Damian had lost the knife in his fall. He had, however, reclaimed the bat. He came rushing at me with the weapon reared back like he was swinging for the fences. He was going for my ribs, so I turned my body. In my weakened condition, blocking the attack was out of the question, so all I could do was offer him the least vulnerable place to land his blow.
The bat hit me hard in the stomach. The pain was unbearable. The wind burst out of me again.
I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out. My vision was dimming. I prayed Christina had seen enough sense to run far away by now.
From the ground, I looked up, hoping to get my breath back before he came back to swing for the home-run. Another well-placed blow to my head would kill me. I tried getting to my feet, but my body wasn’t having it. I sagged, going back to the ground in a bundle of pain.
Damian leered at me and raised the bat again.
“Funny.” He said, looking at his weapon. “I’ve never played baseball in my life. It’s much more of an American thing. I might give it a go now though. I think I’m a natural.”
Then he swung for the final time, aiming hard for my head as if he had just been given an easy underhanded lob of a softball.
The alley filled with the cracking report of a single gunshot.
Two feet away from me, a hole appeared in the center of Damian’s forehead.
He had just enough time for his eyes to lose focus before he hit the ground, the bat clattering along with him. Behind him, through hazy eyes, I saw Christina. She was holding my gun, still aiming it at the place where Damian had been standing.
She was mumbling something, but I didn’t hear it. I did, however, feel it like a vibration on my aching body. My mind wanted to sail far away from that place, only the last vestiges of self-preservation kept me anchored for a few moments more.
EIGHTEEN
Death was whispering to me. The same bad pick-up line I’d heard a thousand times before.
When I managed to open my eyes, I almost wished Christina had run. I just wanted some rest. More than that, I needed medical attention. But she appeared too traumatized and confused to realize these things. As she stood frozen in shock, I could feel the life pouring from my right forearm.
“Looks like I’m a killer after all,” she said, trembling as she looked at the body of Damian; the man who had ruined her life.
I tried to say something but once again, my tongue refused to work properly. Damn thing kept letting me down. Christina needed to get her ass in gear and call an ambulance.
“So I’ll still be on the run,” she added, blankly.
The comforting blanket of sleep reached out to cover me, but I tried to focus on my speech. “Itha umber…,” I said, stopping and then trying again. “Wherrr will you go?”
She only shrugged. “I don’t know. I vanished once before. I can do it again. Just…don’t look for me this time.”
I nodded and then responded in a tired croak. The sound of my own voice scared me.
So weak.
“Christina…please… ambulance.”
I closed my eyes after that and didn’t wait for her response.
The darkness was calling now, sliding over me, the blanket now a comfortable quilt. I let it cover me this time and as I drifted the relief was immediate.
Somewhere, miles away I was vaguely aware of my body shutting down, the adrenaline fading—but that was ok. I welcomed the currents, gently carrying me away from that place.
I finally felt weightless, like a thread on the breeze. Warm and bright, as time and distance melted around me.
Overhead I became aware that the sun was shining. The smell of cut grass and barbecue smoke filled my senses. Nearby children laughed. A park.
It was a memory, a flood of past events, but I wanted it to hold on to it forever.
I spotted my son, Tommy, running across the grass, and felt nothing but joy.
My wife was there too. Sarah sat on a wooden bench with her back to me and waved to our son. She wore a white floral dress—my favorite, and her hair fell to her shoulders. Next to her on the seat was an open laptop—her latest story, no doubt. A scene so familiar. I smiled.
But then I noticed something unusual. A splinter in the memory. Something wrong. A glint of light on metal causing me to squint.
It pulled my attention downwards. Sarah’s right hand was bruised and shaking. The computer glimmered dangerously next to her.
What the hell?
I wanted so badly to warn her. But when I tried to move, I was smoke. No form.
I tried to call out to her instead.
My heart dropped as Sarah slowly turned around. I saw her face, but it was almost unrecognizable, swollen black and blue. Her eyes were glassy as she brought a finger to her cracked lips to signal silence.
She then turned back, reached with her free hand, and closed the computer screen, but not before I caught a glimpse of the article she had been writing.
My God.
My body spasmed, and I was barely aware of the sound of approachin
g sirens. With a tremendous effort, I opened my eyes. I was alone, back in the alley.
Everyone was gone.
EPILOGUE
The doctors kept me in the hospital for three long days. In my many years as a New York police officer and my short stint as a P.I., it was the first time I’d ever had to be admitted for my injuries. To say it was a humbling experience would be an understatement. Amir came by twice to check on me and insisted that I needed to be more careful. He seemed truly alarmed at the injuries this case had landed on me.
Nicole had also called to check on me. That had been the one bright spot during an otherwise dismal stay.
My skull had not been fractured as I had feared. I did sustain a concussion and a tear in my scalp that had taken fourteen stitches. The cut along my arm had been nasty. That had taken thirty-seven stitches to repair, and the doctors had told me that if I had have continued to bleed without medical attention for another five minutes, I might not have made it.
My stomach sported a large purple bruise from the blow with the bat, and I had also suffered two cracked ribs.
All in all, I was miserable. But once discharged and back in my apartment, it became more tolerable…not just because I was in familiar territory, but also because access to alcohol, my painkiller of choice, was much easier. I had to be careful not to drink too much when I washed down my cocktail of pain meds.
On the first morning back at my apartment, I gathered up all of the newspapers I had missed during my stay in the hospital. I scanned the headlines and came up to speed on the events surrounding my recent misadventure. A steaming coffee cup warmed my hands, though it did little to lift my mood.
When I had been discovered by emergency services, the police also found Damian’s body. The knife in the alley had in fact not come from the unfortunate idiots in the elevator but had been traced back to the murder of Jimmy Hughes. After some questioning of people at the party and an inability to place his whereabouts on the night of Jimmy’s murder, the cops hung the killing on Damian Slater. It looked as though Christina Bishop would be cleared of all charges. Despite this, I saw nothing that indicated she had reappeared. Apparently, she had held true to her word and vanished.
As for Damian’s death, there were no real leads. I had been questioned at first and had to lie to protect myself and Christina. My story was that I had been hired by Damian on a job to locate a missing family member. I had the paperwork to back most of this up. I told them that a lead had brought me to the building I’d visited, a story that was backed by at least two people…the people who I assume had been camped out in the lobby that night. In the end, I said that Damian had tried to kill me, and I had no idea why. I told them that he attacked me in the alleyway, and I passed out.
The fact that my gun had not been found helped because of the hole in Damian’s head. I didn’t blame the cops for eyeing me as a suspect, but in the end, they dropped their suspicions. After all, gang activity was high in that area. Plus, the fact that the baseball bat was found in the alley with Damian’s prints, tied him to the additional deaths of the two punks in the apartment building.
In Damian’s demise, justice had been served, one way or another.
If not for being battered and bruised from head to toe I might have laughed as I spotted the official Police press release in the paper, featuring none other than the two cops who had stopped me the other day. Good old Turner and Hooch. I’d virtually handed them Jimmy Hughes’ killer wrapped in a bow, and they’d never know it.
It seemed that luck had still been on my side with this case, even if it didn’t feel like it.
Still, I couldn’t help but be pissed. My injuries would keep me out of action for at least four weeks, just when I felt like I was starting to make progress on my family’s investigation.
I set the newspapers down, eyed my drink, and considered making it an Irish Coffee. The mug was already in my hand when a knock at the door interrupted me. I got up and shuffled to the entrance, my ribs aching fiercely.
I looked through the peephole and saw Amir waiting patiently. I opened the door, and he grinned at me. He stood for a moment taking in my injuries and then sighed. “You look like hell.”
“Nice to see you too. What’s up, Amir?”
“Can I come in?”
“Of course.”
I led him through my office and into the living room where I swept the newspapers off of the couch so he could sit.
“You’re inviting me into your actual apartment and not just the office?” Amir asked, surprised.
“Yeah. The office is closed for a few weeks.”
“How do you feel about that?”
I showed him the hospital dressing on my arm, and the purple bruising at my ribs. “Not too great,” I grumbled.
He chuckled and then said, “That’s actually why I’m here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I figured you’d get fidgety after a few days at home. I also knew you’d be laid up. So when I heard about this…this thing, I thought it might be perfect for you.”
“What thing?” I asked, instantly interested.
“A case.”
“You’re bringing me a case?”
“I am,” Amir said. “A case that will be unlike anything you’ve ever worked on before. Are you interested?”
I couldn’t contain my curiosity…and this was before having a drink or my pain meds for the morning.
“Tell me all about it,” I said, easing back into my chair.
Amir started talking and within thirty seconds, I was hooked.
Ready for More?
Continue the action in the next gripping Thomas Blume book, CROSS FIRE.
A loved one taken. An ex-cop with a past. One night to find the truth...
When ex-New York Detective Thomas Blume is asked to play bodyguard at a high-class London party he figures it should be a night of easy money and free booze.
But easy and free are never what they seem...
The sudden disappearance of two girls throws the night into chaos and now lives are at risk.
One girl is the daughter of wealthy local industrialist Andrew Hyde… the other, the daughter of his close friend Amir.
Why were they taken? And how does it connect to Blume’s investigation of his family’s murder?
Now Blume must use all his skills in a race against time to track down the girls and find the kidnappers before it’s too late...
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COPYRIGHT
This publication (and any by this author) may not be copied or reproduced in any format, by any means - electronic or otherwise - without prior consent of the copyright owner or publisher.
All content Copyright © P.T. Reade 2017.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
RED HUNT
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
EPILOGUE
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