by Danae Ayusso
Thicker than Water
Danae Ayusso
Copyright © 2013 Danae Ayusso All Rights Reserved
Published by Geeks on Ink Publishing
This story is copyrighted and property rights of Danae Ayusso. This is for personal entertainment use only, any reselling, redistribution or online publishing is strictly prohibited by law. This story may not be reproduced, distributed, modified or reposted.
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All characters and situations are fictional. Any similarities to an actual person or persons and situations are purely coincidental and rather impressive.
“Di buona volontà sta pieno l'inferno.” ~Italian Proverb
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Lieutenant Rossi ran down the sidewalk as fast as her legs could take her as she desperately tried to catch up to the perp up ahead. No matter how much long distance running Rossi did, the perp she was chasing obviously had done more, and was starting to outdistance her. Her partner, Lieutenant D'Avanzo, wasn’t able to keep up with her long strides so he took a shortcut through a restaurant, hoping he could cut the perp off at the next block. Rossi’s racing heart was pounding in her ears, making it difficult to hear anything past it, and her lungs ached for air. Up ahead, the perp ducked down an alley and she followed without giving it a second thought.
The brick buildings lining the crate and dumpster littered alley felt as if they were suddenly closing in on her. The clouds above eclipsed the moon, effectively veiling the area in darkness.
Rossi instantly slowed, pulling up her P226 DAK-Sig Sauer, wrapping her hand around the grip, and flattened her back against one of the buildings. She crouched down slightly and strained to hear, to gauge the exact location of the perp.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
In the distance, towards the back of the alley, she heard labored breathing and shuffling. The late afternoon rainstorm had littered the streets and sidewalks with puddles, which worked in Rossi’s favor when the perp gave her the slip after four blocks. The perp’s sneakers were fully saturated from the puddles he was running through, causing each of his steps to make a squishing sound, which Rossi followed as he paced back and forth at the end of the alleyway. The smell of garbage, moldy cardboard boxes that sat out overnight, urine, wet rodents, and questionable Asian cuisine from a block down, made her sick to her stomach and she fought the urge to double over and vomit. A large rodent scampered across one of her shoes and she carefully shook it off instead of punting the rat down the alley towards the panting perp.
The situation wasn’t the greatest. Her partner would be there in sixty seconds, ninety tops, from which direction she didn’t entirely know. But knowing D'Avanzo as well as she did, he’d most likely have a cheesy one-liner to accompany his arrival which she always gave an eye roll in return before she’d turn her head so he couldn’t see the small smile that’d pull at the corners of her lips.
But what Rossi did know was that the perp was armed. That’s what started the foot pursuit to begin with. Though, what kept it going wasn’t the fact that he was a punk street kid that was armed with, what was most likely a stolen weapon, which he used to mug an old lady of her purse in front of the two Lieutenants that stopped for coffee before heading to dinner, then quickly tossed the purse over his shoulder at them and ran.
No. It was something else that was nagging at Rossi. Even as a beat cop, you didn’t just have crime happen in front of you. It was next to impossible. And, both Rossi and D'Avanzo wore their badges in plain view—she on the front of her right hip and he around his neck from a chain—not to mention, their attire screamed COP from a mile away. Their holstered guns were more than visible since they had left their jackets in the car, and they were talking rather openly about a case they weren’t supposed to be working on but were—the two never could follow directions very well when it came to keeping their noses out of other officers’ cases. The perp had been standing outside the coffee shop when they walked in, each gave him a second glance and they simultaneously clicked the safeties off of the guns at their hips. When they left the shop, the young man was still standing there as if he was waiting for them, and that was when he took off and apparently randomly grabbed the first thing within reaching distance: the arm bag of an elderly woman.
Rossi felt in the pit of her stomach that the punk street kid was more than he appeared, thus she needed to find out what… It was her job to find out what.
The ‘Five Families’ of NYC had been surfacing more and more in the past twelve months, and every time they ‘stepped out’ it left a river of blood for her and D'Avanzo to wade through. Being part of the Organized Crime unit of the N.Y.P.D. had not a single perk and too much stress, but that was exactly how Rossi liked it.
Rossi’s back stiffened when a new scent mixed with the palpable malodor.
“Take a hike,” a deep voice mumbled from the end of the alley and her eyes widened.
‘No!’ Rossi mouthed, her voice escaping her.
“Thanks, Boss,” the young man panted, then slipped through the narrow space between the building on the left and the tall, barbwire coiled fence blocking the end of the alley.
Rossi silently cursed; she knew it was a trap.
“Catalina, I know you are down there,” the man mused as he adjusted the cuffs on his finely tailored suit jacket. “I can smell your perfume and gun oil from here.”
Rossi groaned. “Daniele, you know I don’t wear perfume. It’s called pit stick, you should try some.”
He chuckled. “Indeed. I thought it was the alley, but now I can clearly see that the stench is the class you reek with.”
“What do you want?” she demanded, sliding back down the wall towards the street.
“It is not what I want, Catalina,” Daniele assumingly informed her, as if she already knew that, which she did. “It is what He wants.”
Rossi licked her dry lips. “He doesn’t want what you’re proposing. It isn’t going to happen,” she informed him.
“So you keep saying.”
She strained to see through the darkness, but his black on black suit, medium olive complexion, and black hair hid him as he moved so he appeared as nothing more than a floating shadow. “Real classy setting to attempt to make a marriage, Daniele,” she commented.
“We both know the futility of such endeavors,” he said, appearing not more than six feet in front of Rossi with his gun pointed at her. “However, I strongly suggest you reconsider. Remember, blood is thicker than water,” he warned.
Rossi erected herself, her tall frame making her nearly as tall as the man itching to kill her. Her gun was trained on him, it had been the moment he opened his mouth, but she knew in her gut that this wasn’t going to end well for anyone.
“Drop the weapon,” she said, her voice low and threatening, but Daniele smirked, not intimated in the least.
“What are you going to do, kill me?” he asked, slightly amused, and the corners of his wide lips pulled up on one side.
“Just give me a reason,” Rossi said.
“I have given you more than seventy,” Daniele countered.
“A confession?” Rossi asked, well aware that it was but it’d never hold up in court.
“Your word against mine. Who would believe you?” he mused.
“A second witness to the confession,” D'Avanzo said, stepping out from the shadowed side entrance of the building on the right, his gun leveled at the side of Daniele’s head.
Daniele smiled and Rossi’s eyes widened.
“No!” she yelled, throwing herself between D'Avanzo and Daniele just as shots rang out.
Daniele staggered to the side slightly, his right arm dropping. He ignored the hole in his
arm and continued to smile, overly amused.
Rossi smashed back into the doorway, D'Avanzo’s body cushioning the blow. She started to pick herself up when Daniele stepped in front of her and leveled his gun at her head.
“You should have kept him on a tighter leash,” he snarled.
Rossi, not scared in the least, stood up in front of him, her gun pressing against his crotch and he cocked an eyebrow. “He should have kept you on a tighter leash,” she corrected.
Daniele’s smirk fell as Rossi collapsed to the ground. He looked her over before a snarl tugged at his top lip, and he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed. “Yes, 9-1-1, I’d like to report a shooting,” he said. “Two officers down in an alley at the intersection of West 20th Street and 7th Avenue,” he said then hung up. “You did this to yourself,” he informed her.
Rossi struggled to breathe through the blood flooding her throat.
Daniele squatted down, knocking her gun away and took her pulse. “It’s a shame those mannaggia Kevlar vests don’t fully cover on the sides.”
The sound of sirens in the near distance made him chuckle.
“Sounds like the cavalry is on its way,” Daniele said, his light blue eyes burning into hers before he sighed then stood up. “I wish I could say I’ll see you around, but by the look of the puddle of blood you’re sitting in, it would be ridiculously foreboding of me. Ciao, Catalina.”
With that, Daniele turned on his heels and strolled from the alley as if he hadn’t a care in the world, and headed the opposite direction of the sirens; the bullet in his shoulder was nothing more than an inconvenience and ruined suit.
Rossi sat there on the ground in a rapidly growing pool of blood, her back against her partner’s still chest.
“D'Avanzo?” she gasped, peppering herself with blood as the name left her lips. “Frankie?” she choked before her head lolled to the side and her breathing stopped.
With each push of the ancient planer in his skilled hands, a thin ribbon of pine coiled up and over the instrument before falling to the floor with the others. For the past five years, Colt had been locked away in his private mountain retreat, which was cleverly disguised as an abandoned weathered barn and cabin reminiscent of the settlers that set roots in the remote Montana wilderness over a century ago.
The workshop had power thanks to a backup generator that was nearly as old as Colt. The gentle rumbling of the diesel powered antique under a steel and aluminum awning on the western side of the structure was the only sound for miles around. On the eastern side of the structure was a water collection system that was used for cleaning since there was no plumbing in the workshop. The windows had all been blacked out, every nook and cranny was sealed and insulated to combat the late winter and early spring below freezing temperatures. There was no radio playing as he worked, no phone on the property, no television and no neighbors.
And that was exactly how Colt wanted it.
For the past five years he’s lived as a shut in. It wasn’t that unusual in rural Montana. After all, the state was famous for Big Sky, grizzly bears, great hunting, peace and quiet, and a unabomber. Colt hunted for his dinner, stock piled meat in a root cellar, canned fruits and vegetables during the summer and early fall, read by candlelight and in front of one of many fireplaces in the small cabin he called home, and worked in his workshop.
That was the life of Colt Fury.
But it wasn’t always that way.
The planer stopped in mid-push when a new sound softly danced on the wind.
A brown police jeep carefully navigated the only clear path that lead up to the hidden cabin. Only a local who had grown up in Eureka, Montana, would have known how to drive the uneven terrain, but only someone who had grown up playing in those exact woods would be able to find the unadorned cabin nestled in a thicket of pine trees. With the fire burning low inside the cabin, the smoke blended into the thick fog which was hung stagnate, appearing as if it was sheering the mountain in half, and the sporadic snow flutters throughout the morning veiled the area in a dusting of white.
Colt shook his head and started planing again, however, all the fineness and years of carpentry experience were notably absent as he planed large ribbons of wood off of the piece, practically destroying the shape of the top of the chair he’d been working on all day.
When the jeep’s engine shut off and the driver’s side door opened then slammed shut, he shook his head in resignation.
I almost made it.
There was a pounding at the workshop door before it opened and a hand waved inside before a head followed. “I’m unarmed,” Sheriff James Lake said before ducking inside, closing the door behind him. “Sort of,” he added with a chuckle.
Colt simply nodded, never turning around to regard the man who, at one point in time, was like a brother to him.
James looked around the workshop; it looked the same as it did the last time he was up, last year at this time, only now, the entire hayloft above the back half of the workshop was completely filled with beautiful wood furniture pieces. On the hooks littering the walls, more delicate, wooden chairs hung while their lacquer dried. Colt’s woodworking ability never ceased to amaze James, but what was even more amazing was that no one would ever see any of the pieces. Most likely, Colt would use them as firewood, he always did.
“You still haven’t cut your hair, I see,” James tried to tease but there was no mirth in him.
Colt simply nodded; he would be the first to admit that he looked more like a Neanderthal of the Pleistocene period than a man of the twenty-first century, but he didn’t care.
Vanity was overrated and he had no one to impress.
“Weren’t you wearing that outfit the last time I came by?” James asked, pulling his cowboy hat off and ran his hand through his choppy, gray dusted hair in frustration.
Colt nodded then shrugged.
“This isn’t what Vicks would have wanted,” James blurted out before he could stop himself, and the planer in Colt’s hands stopped. “Colt, I love you, always have, but this isn’t what my sister would have wanted.”
Colt sat the planer down, now that he had completely ruined the piece he was working on without even realizing it, and turned to face James. He crossed his long, thick corded arms across his broad chest and leaned back against the workbench.
“She didn’t want to die either,” Colt retorted.
That was the first thing he’s said in years.
James hissed out a breath; he knew that was coming. “No one deserved to die, Colt. Not Vicks, not the other three, and especially not the woman discovered this morning by a runner out on Elkhart Drive.”
Colt cocked a dark blond eyebrow, but didn’t say anything; the hard set of his jaw and flair of his nostrils told James all he needed to know.
Both were hoping, praying even, that Pope was dead. It’d been nearly five years since they’d heard from him, so they were praying for the best. Both wanted atonement—one for their sister and the other for their fiancée—but keeping the body count at four, especially when it could have skyrocketed since they had no useable evidence, no suspects, no leads, and no motive, would have to suffice.
Obviously Pope was alive and well, and ready to play.
“Same M.O. as the others,” James said, answering Colt’s unvoiced doubts. “She was twenty-five, a medical student from Western Washington that came out with her family to do some skiing over the border. They reported her missing this morning and an hour later dispatch got a call from the runner that came across her.”
Colt’s deep brown eyes darkened considerably as he stood there, the images of nearly five years ago to the day replaying over and over in his head… Even the happier memories prior to her death were now tinted in blood.
Then something occurred to him.
“Who in the hell would be running this time of year up on Elkhart Drive?” he asked; his voice came out in a deep rumble that caused his body to tremble slightly, and, in turn, it vibrat
ed the workbench, knocking the few remaining shavings to the floor.
James shrugged, making a face. “Good question, I should have asked,” he admitted.
Colt shook his head. “I can’t believe they made you Sheriff,” he grumbled.
A small, sheepish smile pulled at the corner of James’ pale pink lips. “I got it by default, you turned it down, remember?”
“I remember everything,” Colt retorted, and James’ smile instantly fell. “Who is this runner?” he asked, fighting to keep from slipping back into his old way of life…his old mindset. Never did he think it would be so hard to do. He hadn’t talked to anyone in nearly five years, hadn’t gone to town, and hadn’t even left the property that had been in his family for generations. The only person that visited was James, and he only came once a year on the anniversary of Vick’s death; it was a constant reminder of Colt’s greatest failure...not that he needed one.
And now that failure had cost another young woman her life.
James shook his head. “It…I don’t know what to think about this anymore. The case file has never left my desk. Every damn day I read through it, I swear to God I do,” he said, his voice thick with emotion, “but it’s as cold as that body.”
Colt’s eyes widened. “You left the body at the scene?” he demanded, sounding, not only disappointed but, appalled.
James nodded. “It’s an active crime scene. Colt, the person that found the body is… I’m getting one of those vibes,” he admitted in a huff, his shoulders slumping.
Now he had Colt’s complete attention.
Where Colt had his impressive woodworking skill and near perfect record while on the force, James had a completely unique skill that Colt had always been envious of: gut instinct. When James had a feeling, you didn’t ignore it. Colt had a near perfect record in closing cases, but James’ gut was always right. He had a feeling the day Vicks was taken, and again only hours before they found her body. James knew Vicks was gone before Colt could even think of entertaining such thoughts; it was a link between twins that went beyond rational thought and understanding.
