by Scott Cook
Crowe felt as much as saw the flames that consumed the crabgrass around the Rosebush. Heat blasted toward him; they must have used gasoline to set the fire. It was the only way the grass and gravel would have ignited after the downpour. Yet the fire wasn’t moving toward him or the building. What the hell were they trying to accomplish by torching the place? The Rosebush was solid concrete.
He took one last look around – he was sure the shooters were the ones in the pickup, but he was a cautious man – then stepped back to get a long-distance look at the flames. He quickly realized the fire wasn’t meant to destroy, it was meant as a message.
After about ten yards, he could see it: a burning swastika.
#
Sam crouched low on the floor of the safe room, the shotgun pointed at the door, his pulse pounding in his ears. Around him lay Tess, Diane, and half a dozen attractive young women in various stages of undress. All of them were breathing audibly. The room’s design suggested it had once been a walk-in freezer. Judging by the weight of the door as he slammed it behind them, it had been reinforced with concrete to act as exactly what it was right now: a barrier between them and the person who wanted to kill them.
The girls huddled close to each other, not speaking. They had been easy enough to herd into the room; Sam got the impression they had been trained for this eventuality, or at least prepared for it as an occupational hazard. They were far from calm, but he was impressed with the composure they managed to show in light of the situation. Hell, he was impressed with his own ability to cope so far.
He checked his watch. There had been no shots for more than two minutes now, but he didn’t know if that was good or bad. Had Crowe managed to subdue the shooters? Sam was amazed at the man’s skills – Darcy Flowers had been right, he was obviously ex-military or paramilitary – but he was one man against at least two. If Crowe had fallen, the shooters could be combing the building, looking for the rest of them.
“Sam,” Tess whispered.
He turned to her with a finger to his lips, but as he did he saw the reason she’d broken the silence: Diane’s face was white as ivory, her breathing ragged and uneven. Her eyes were closed. Sam glanced down at the hem of her dress. It was soaked in blood.
“She was shot in the thigh,” said Tess, trembling. “I think it hit the artery. I didn’t see it in all the chaos.” Tears welled in her green eyes. Sam saw the toll the situation had taken on her in that miserable expression. “I didn’t even notice. I was too scared.”
Sam handed her the shotgun. “You cover the door,” he said. Tess looked startled but did as she was told. He tore open his work shirt and stripped it off, winding it into a tourniquet. He turned to the girls.
“Do any of you know first aid?”
A slim brunette raised a shaky hand. “I’m studying nursing,” she breathed.
Sam couldn’t believe his luck. “That’s great,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Katie.”
“Okay, Katie, what do I do with her?”
The girl looked down at Diane. “I don’t know. We never took gunshot wounds in class.”
“Where do I tie the tourniquet?”
She thought a moment. “Above the wound.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, above the wound.”
Sam hiked Diane’s skirt. Now that he was closer, he could see blood flowing freely from the hole in her thigh. It made him think of the plastic top on an old coffee percolator, liquid bubbling up over and over. He wrapped his shirt around the leg, almost to the crotch of her Victoria’s Secret underwear, and tied it tight. The blood continued to percolate.
Tess looked back at them. “Is it working?”
“Not yet,” Sam said.
“Put pressure on it,” said Katie. “Here, I’ll do it.” She shuffled over to Diane and crossed her palms over the wound.
“We need to call 911,” said Tess. She reached into Sam’s pants pocket and withdrew his phone. She looked at the screen. “No bars. Dammit!”
“It’s the concrete in here,” he said. “We’re on our own.”
Long minutes ticked by. Finally, they heard Crowe’s voice outside the door.
“Open up! It’s safe.”
Sam and Tess exchanged a glance. Not for everyone. Sam lifted the steel-reinforced two-by-four that had slammed into place when they closed the door behind them. Crowe pulled the door open from the outside.
All but one of the girls rushed out into the hallway. They dashed to their rooms and emerged fully clothed in moments. Crowe handed each of them a wad of twenties. “I’m sorry this happened, ladies. You know the drill.”
The girls ran down the stairs without a word. Sam heard the big back door to the building slam shut behind them.
“They’re witnesses,” said Sam, emerging into the hall. He’d retrieved the shotgun from Tess.
Crowe glared at him. “Do I look like I give a shit?”
“You’re okay?” Tess asked.
“Yeah. You?”
A tear streamed down her cheek. “We are. But Diane . . .”
Crowe seemed not to hear. He looked at Sam. “What happened to your shirt?”
Sam and Tess exchanged a glance. He stepped away from the doorway. Crowe looked down at the floor. Katie still knelt beside Diane, but she was no longer holding the wound. Diane’s eyes were closed, her chest still. Katie’s face was awash in tears.
“I tried,” she breathed. “I – I really tried . . .”
Crowe walked slowly into the safe room. Sam averted his eyes, but there was no mistaking the look on the man’s face. Someone was going to die for this.
CHAPTER 21
Alex and Angie lay naked together on top of the foldout sofa that served as her bed, breathing heavily, damp skin and hair drying in the night air wafting in through the living room window.
“That was amazing,” Angie huffed. “Squeaky clean.”
“Yeah,” said Alex. “I just hope your neighbors didn’t hear.”
“I live over a grocery store, dummy. Who’s going to hear, the eggs?”
“I don’t know, I think I was loud enough to make people wonder if there was a sasquatch in town.”
She lifted herself onto her side and looked down at him. Her expression was serious. “I want you to know I don’t do this with every guy I meet.”
“Me neither.”
“I should hope you don’t do it with every guy you meet,” she said, poking him in the chest. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
Alex picked up on the Seinfeld reference. “No, not at all,” he said in his best George Costanza.
Angie smiled and kissed him deeply. He felt a jolt in his nether regions that she must have seen. “Simmer down, Coop,” she said. “We have a concert to get to.”
“We could stay here and make some more beautiful music on our own.”
She rolled out of bed and stood up. Alex marveled at her body as she pulled on her shorts and a top. “That would be fun, but I want to dance first.” She looked down at him. “Okay?”
“Okay.” He pulled on his own shorts and tee-shirt. “So who’s this band again?”
“Just some locals. I think they play rockabilly stuff.”
Rockabilly. Of course. It was just so Lost Lake. Everything here was about having a good time, a good summer time.
They both slipped on their sandals and headed for the door, Alex’s arm around Angie’s shoulder. As she turned off the light behind them, Alex didn’t know that he would never see the inside of the little apartment again.
CHAPTER 22
Crowe was sick of answering questions. He was on his third detective, this one a big black dude named Ohene, who spoke with a faint African accent. The cop’s tan summer suit was half a size too small, no doubt to show off his prodigious biceps.
“Why was Diane Manning here tonight, Mr. Crowe?” asked the detective.
Crowe rolled his eyes. “I told the other two, she was here consulting
on Rufus Hodge’s appeal.”
“Uh-huh. And the other three?”
“Walsh and Gallagher were here to interview Diane for a story. The other girl works for Hodge’s completely legitimate business upstairs.”
The cop wrinkled his nose. “Legitimate. Right. And they were the only people in the building during the shooting.”
“That’s right.”
The Rosebush was awash in cops and forensics people, dusting for prints, digging slugs out of the walls and generally going over the place with a fine-toothed comb. Crowe wasn’t worried; the Roses knew his rule about shitting where they eat. The Rosebush was always clean.
Or is it? I don’t know if I can trust them anymore. Not one of them was here for this.
“Where did the guns come from?” asked the cop.
Crowe frowned. “I don’t know, why don’t you find the fuckers that were shooting at us and ask them?”
Ohene didn’t flinch. “I meant the guns you were using.”
“Typical cop, blame the victim.”
“Victim. Right.”
“They’re all registered,” Crowe sighed. “And they were used in self-defense. That’s all I’m going to say without a lawyer.”
As if on cue, the paramedics wheeled the body of Diane Manning through the room and towards the battered storefront door. They had covered her with a sheet, but Crowe would know the curves under it anywhere. He felt a sudden stab through his guts, like a jolt of lightning.
“Looks like you’re going to need a new one,” said the detective.
Crowe’s nostrils flared. “If you weren’t wearing that badge, I’d break your fucking neck,” he growled.
Ohene glared back. “We can go outside and take it off, cop-killer. Right now, just you and me.”
I’d love that, but I don’t have the time, he didn’t say. Instead, he said: “You holding me?”
The cop glowered. “No,” he said, finally. “I know you’d be back on the street in an hour.”
“You going after the Aryans? It’s pretty obvious they were looking for revenge after what happened to their boy in the Badlands.”
Ohene smiled. “Sure. We’ll get on that as soon as we have the manpower available. Shouldn’t take more than a few weeks.” He flipped his notebook closed and walked away. “Don’t leave town, Crowe,” he said over his shoulder. “We might want to question you some more.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Crowe.
Sam Walsh watched the cop leave as he walked up to Crowe. He’d grabbed a tee-shirt out of the Wild Roses’ laundry to replace the one he’d used trying to save Diane’s life.
“There’s already TV crews outside,” he said. “I just saw Barb Foster. Tess and I need to get out of here before we end up on the news. Assuming we haven’t already. I don’t know what the cops are releasing to the media.”
“Use the back door, where you parked,” said Crowe.
“All right. Thanks. So, what do we do next?” he asked.
“We? There’s no we.”
“After what I just did for you? We’re in this together now. The three of us.”
Crowe thought about it for a moment. None of the Roses had been here during the attack. Combine that with the fact someone in the know had tipped off Tom Ferbey’s killers about the contents of the storage unit, and suddenly he couldn’t trust any of them, except for one, and that one wasn’t here. Beggars couldn’t be choosers at this point.
“All right,” said Crowe. “If you two are in for this, you better pack a bag.”
“Why? The cops just told us not to leave town.”
“Do you want the truth, or do you want to be a good little do-bee and stay here with the cops?”
Sam frowned and chewed it over for a moment as Tess joined them. “What’s going on?” she asked, clearly disturbed by the looks on their faces.
“Crowe wants us to go somewhere with him.”
“But the police –”
“Yeah, they want you in town,” said Crowe. “You need to decide right now if you’re in or out.”
Tess glanced at Sam. “You know I’m in,” he said. “I have to see this through.”
She sighed and ran a hand through her auburn hair, wild and knotted by the experience they had all just endured. “Fuck it, why not? There’s no way I’m letting you hog the glory on this one.”
Crowe couldn’t help but admire their moxie. He was a highly trained, highly paid veteran of this sort of shit; they were reporters, probably lucky if they made sixty grand a year. He hoped he could keep them safe, the way he couldn’t with Diane Manning. He hadn’t been in love with her – far from it – and she had more than her share of flaws. But who didn’t? And no matter what kind of woman she was, she didn’t deserve to go out like that.
“Where and when are we going?” Sam asked.
“Sorry, but I’ve gotta keep that to myself for now.”
Tess frowned. “You still don’t trust us? Even after all this?”
“I only trust two people, and neither of them are you.”
“Why should we trust you?”
“I just saved your asses from a hit squad, that’s why.”
Sam and Tess looked at each other. “He’s got a point,” said Sam.
“Pack a bag and meet me at Anderson Station tomorrow at six a.m. sharp. I’ll be driving a silver Yukon. Take a cab; I don’t want that piece of shit you drive sitting in the parking lot like a big, blue neon sign for the cops.”
Sam looked like he was going to say something but then thought better of it. “All right,” he said. “We’ll be there.”
The reporters took one last glance around the Rosebush and then left. Crowe stayed until the gaggle of cops finally began to dissipate a couple hours later. Finally alone, he surveyed the damage to the Rosebush himself. Twenty-nine rounds, twenty-nine holes. He looked at each hole closely. About half were on a slight downward angle. The rest were flush on. One shooter was taller than the other. Most of the holes were in small groupings of two or three. Crowe nodded to himself, satisfied that his hunch was right. The shooters weren’t Aryans. He was certain of two things: first, whoever had attacked the Rosebush tonight were the same people that had stolen Wild Roses property and murdered Tom Ferbey. Second, he needed to make two phone calls.
#
The sun was dropping below the Rockies as Sam drove Tess home. Neither of them spoke for several minutes; instead, they just sat and listened to the chug and wheeze of Blue Thunder’s ancient engine.
Finally, he glanced over at her. She was still gorgeous despite the wild hair, disheveled clothes, and shell-shocked look. “Hell of a day,” he said.
She turned to him, eyes wide. “Did you just say ‘hell of a day’ to me?”
Sam looked back at the road, abashed. “I couldn’t think of anything else to say.”
She stared at him for a moment. “Hell of a day,” she said. Then she surprised both of them by cracking up into peals of laughter. Sam quickly joined her. It was borderline hysterical, he knew, but it felt good, like finally being able to take a sharp rock out of your shoe.
They laughed for a full minute before settling into a more companionable silence. Finally, Tess said: “Are we crazy?”
Sam shrugged. “Probably.”
“I mean, people shot at us tonight. Someone died, right in front of us.”
“I know. I was there.”
“So why are we going home to pack for a trip with a guy who might be a homicidal maniac? Why aren’t we heading straight for the nearest bar and getting blind, stinking drunk?”
“You know Crowe isn’t a maniac.”
“All right, but still. Why are we sober?”
Sam’s brows came together in thought. “I think because I don’t want to lose this feeling.”
“What feeling?”
“You know. Like we just did something amazing.”
Tess blinked. “Amazing?”
“Or something like that. Something that isn’t just w
atching things from the sidelines. Something that isn’t listening to people with agendas drone on about shit no one cares about. Something that mattered.” He glanced at her expression. “Does that make any sense?”
“It probably wouldn’t to anyone else,” she said. “But I guess it does to me.”
“So we’re in this together?”
“To the bitter end, Bernstein.”
Sam snapped his fingers. “That reminds me. I need to make a call.” He pulled the phone out of his pocket and hit a contact name.
“Watch the road, asshole,” Tess chided.
“I am.” The phone rang once, twice, three times. Finally he heard the electronic click that was the universal signal that a human being was not on the other end of the line.
“You have reached Constable Darcy Flowers of the Calgary Police Service. I will be away from the office on vacation until the end of the month. If you would like to leave a message, please wait for the tone, and I will return your call when I am back in the office. Thank you and have a nice day.”
“Fuck your nice day,” Sam said after the beep. “Darcy, it’s Sam. Look, I just wanted to say I’m sorry about how we left things that last time. I could really use your help on something. I’m headed out of town tomorrow morning, I don’t know where just yet, but I think I’m on to something big. Anyway, if you don’t hear back from me in the next several days, it might mean something has happened to me. I know that sounds crazy, but this kind of is crazy. So, give me a call if you get this message, unless you’re off in Hawaii or something. Or, you know, avenge my death if it comes to that. Hasta la vista, Goliath.”
Tess gave him a quizzical look. “Who did you call?”
“Just a source in the police department. He’s not a friend, exactly, but we respect each other. And I think I can count on him if we really need him.”
“He’d help you after you talked to him like that?”
“It’s a thing with us.”
Tess shook her head. “Fucking men.”
A few moments later, her cell phone rang. She took it out and saw the caller ID. “Shit,” she muttered. “It’s Shippy.”
