Spree
Page 46
Sandra McDonald broke away from a cluster of FBI directors and caught her attention. “I just wanted to congratulate you. I thought you handled the ceremony with great grace and dignity.”
Angie was touched. She and her boss had certainly had their differences but recently the AD had shown herself to be hugely supportive. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.” McDonald took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “People remember these kinds of ceremonies. It helps them have a sense of closure. I know for you it will take a lot longer, but you will find it.”
“I hope so.”
She let go of her hand. “When you’ve rested and had some private time, come and see me. You made some big calls on the Hendry case and got them right when others, including myself, didn’t. That’s impressive. I’m hoping your plans include staying with the unit after the baby.”
“I haven’t thought that far.”
“You don’t have to. Not now. I just want you to know I value you and the special skills you have.”
“That’s appreciated.”
“Good.” McDonald gave her a respectful nod as she prepared to depart. “And I hope today’s ‘other arrangements’ go well.”
Angie stiffened.
McDonald smiled knowingly. “Crawford told me. He had to. And don’t worry, you have my tacit approval as well as his.” She drifted back to the group.
Chips had been hovering anxiously. Now he stepped forward with some urgency. “The car’s waiting—we really need to go.”
“I’m ready.” She put down the glass of water she’d been drinking and headed to the coatroom. Their exit came as no surprise. They’d been saying good-byes for twenty minutes and everyone knew they were catching an evening flight back to LA. Most people understood that a hotel room in a strange town was no place to spend the night after you’ve buried a loved one.
Outside, a cool breeze blew in off the Potomac and shook the leaves on the trees on Memorial Drive. A spotless, black Crown Vic idled by the curb. A uniformed driver got out to open the back doors for them.
“Angie.” The call came from Ruis.
She turned and was glad to see him. “I looked to say good-bye but couldn’t find you.”
“Call of nature,” he explained. “Even at military funerals they happen.”
She smiled. “Thanks again for making all the arrangements. For helping me see things through. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“I’ll always be there for you.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek.
“I know you will.” She held him and hugged gratefully.
“Before you go”—his tone changed—“you need to speak to someone. He’s been waiting until now.” Ruis motioned to a man standing back in the doorway.
From the shadows, Joe Lamotta walked forward.
“Doctor Holmes.” He sounded apologetic. “I’m sorry to come to you today but I just need one minute alone, please.”
Ruis backed off. “Call me tomorrow?”
“I will.” She looked from the SKU agent to Lamotta. “A minute is all I have. I’m heading for a plane.”
“I know.”
Chips shouted from the other side of the waiting vehicle, “Angie, we have to go!”
“I’ll be right with you.” She walked toward Jake’s former brother-in-arms, fearing another helping of platitudes. “So, what is it that you want, Mr. Lamotta?”
He turned his back to the car, reached inside his jacket and produced an envelope that had been folded in half. “This is what Jake asked me about.” His voice was hushed but firm. “In here are copies of official documents that confirm a war crime Corrie Chandler witnessed had been covered up.” He put them in her hand. “Look at them, or don’t look at them. The choice is yours. You know how to contact me if you want to take this further.”
She turned the envelope in her hands. “This is what you and Jake spoke about?”
“It is. Chandler told him about the incident after he was arrested at the Observatory. Jake believed it might have caused post-traumatic stress and”—he hesitated—“might have been contributory to Chandler’s homicidal actions.”
She slipped the envelope beneath her jacket. “Thank you.” She added, “For giving me this, and for being here today for Jake.”
“It was my privilege.” He nodded and started to go.
“One thing,” she asked. “What made you change your mind?”
He paused and blew breath. “I got to thinking how Corrie Chandler had murdered his wife, a neighbor and had almost killed Jake. Fella like Chandler doesn’t rate high on my scale of concerns. But then, I’m not like Jake. He’d clearly felt compelled to right an injustice—regardless of whom it involved or what the consequences to his own career might have been. And that does rate high with me. Highest of the high. Fact is, I would have dishonored the memory of a fine friend and a great man if I hadn’t given you those papers.”
“Thank you.”
He looked to Chips, peering anxiously from the car. “Now, I think you really do have to go.”
“I do.”
They managed half-smiles before they both turned and headed in opposite directions.
Angie stopped at the car and shouted back to him, “Mr. Lamotta!”
He slowed and wheeled round.
“Next time you’re in LA, please call me. I’d like to know more about Jake and your years together.”
“That would be my pleasure, ma’am. My real pleasure.”
47
Dulles Airport, Washington
The wind gusting in from the Potomac River heralded the start of a storm. The sky blackened ominously as the Boeing 757 rose from the runway and began its five-and-a-half hour, two-thousand-mile flight to LAX.
Chips and Angie had changed out of their black suits at the airport and were so exhausted they’d fallen asleep almost as soon as the big plane had leveled out.
Not for them the distractions of predinner drinks, movies, snacks and enforced reading. They just wanted to shut out the world and get home.
The flight touched down fifteen minutes early.
Still tired and weary, the young researcher drove Angie’s Toyota from LAX. Not back to her place. But half an hour south, to Pelican Cove and the ocean.
In the trunk were Jake’s real ashes and the special candle lanterns that he’d had made in Chinatown.
Thanks to Crawford and Ruis—and later McDonald—Angie was about to give him the good-bye he’d dreamed of as a young soldier. Once she’d explained the letter he’d written, her senior colleagues conspired to dupe the cemetery and afford Jake a full military funeral as well as the private good-bye and send-off Angie was sure he really wanted.
Chips parked and got out.
From the trunk he carefully handed her a wicker basket that contained the lanterns, Jake’s ashes, a gas lighter, flashlight and tissues. He hoped he’d thought of everything. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come?”
“I’ll be fine on my own.”
Chips took his cellphone out and checked it. “I’ve got a good signal here, so call if you want me to walk down and be with you. Otherwise, I’ll just sit here and say my own good-bye.”
“Thanks.” Angie hugged him, flicked on the flashlight and began her final walk with Jake.
The sky was ink black and myriad stars shone like scattered white diamonds. The moon was waning but remained bright enough to cast silvery sparkles way out on breaking waves.
Angie couldn’t yet see the ocean, but she could hear it down the hillside in front of her. The rhythmic crashing of waves seemed to pull her closer, as though unseen hands had taken hers and were guiding her to exactly the right spot. The noise of the tide was soothing and peaceful and with each step she increasingly felt this was a fitting place for a brave Marine to find a final resting place.
Angie knew she was approaching the junction of her past and her future. Jake had once said that every end was just a new beginning and right now tho
se words made more sense than they had ever done.
At the foot of the hill, near the water’s edge, she sat on the rocks and carefully arranged the ashes in the scooped cradles of the four lanterns that would carry Jake’s soul to the four corners of the compass.
Angie lit the wick of the first candle and let the strong paper sphere fill with hot air. It came alive in her hands and tussled to break free. She wasn’t yet ready to let it go. Each lantern deserved its own farewell message. The young soldier that had dreamed of such an end to his existence on earth deserved the most eloquent send-off she could manage. Angie held the impatient lantern between both hands and looked at it as though it were the face of the man she loved. “Jake, my darling, my rock, my everything, I will never forget you, not for one minute of one day. I’ll always remember how you transformed my life and taught me to feel and love without fear, to grow and be the person I’d been frightened to be before I knew you. Good-bye, my darling, I will forever love you.”
Angie kissed the curve of the lantern, lifted it and let go.
It rose in the dark sky, a ball of burnished white and gold floating to the heavens.
She lit the second quickly and set it free to chase the first. “Fly high, my sweetheart. Go to the places we never managed to get to. Look down on the mountains and the seas we would have climbed and sailed. Find the forest paths we would have walked and those quiet, hidden places we’d have sat and loved and laughed together in. Find them, my darling. Find them for us and make them our own, for when we are together again.”
The third was soon in her hands. But it was shaking. Emotion was pounding in her chest and she feared she’d fall apart before she completed this most private of rituals. Angie took a slow breath and kissed the hovering orb as it filled with warmth. “This, my love, is to say sorry.” She struggled to go on. “Oh, my precious man, I am so, so sorry that I ever doubted you, criticized you or got angry with you. What a stupid woman I am. If I’d known how little time we’d had, then I’d have made you so much happier. Forgive me, sweetheart, that I hadn’t loved you more, and learned to love you sooner.” Tears broke and she sobbed. Only the sight of the other two lanterns burning in the dark sky, hovering, seemingly waiting, gave her the strength to continue. “Oh, Jake, my darling, darling Jake, I’m so sorry for that night—for keeping you away from me—for being so selfish…” She couldn’t speak now, couldn’t fight the sobs as she opened her arms and let him go.
One more lantern.
She was emotionally exhausted but determined to hold it together. A look to the distant sky told her to light it quickly so it could catch the others.
Angie fumbled with the lighter. Her fingers were wet from wiping tears. It took her several desperate clicks to produce a flame.
The candle’s wick was reluctant to burn. The lantern refused to fill with warm air.
It was as though the last of Jake refused to leave her.
Angie bent close to the cradle of ashes and whispered, “This is for our baby, darling. It is our child’s good-bye to you.”
Slowly the wick glowed. The lantern proudly swelled in her trembling hands. It grew to fullness but didn’t fight. There was no breeze around her. Nothing to help it rise.
Not until she kissed it. Not until her heart thumped so hard she felt she’d burst.
Then it soared.
Streaked upward, right toward the waning moon. It stayed soldier straight. Proud and true. Just like the son she was certain she was carrying would grow up to be.
The child she would call Jake Junior.
About the Author
Michael Morley lives in the UK and has had two bestselling thrillers there, Spider and Viper. He is also the producer and director of some of the hardest-hitting crime shows on British television, including The Cook Report, Murder in Mind, The Hunt for Baby Abbie, and A Shred of Evidence. These shows have not only broken boundaries but have also won several major awards.
He has three sons and lives a hundred miles north of London in the heart of the English countryside with his family, eleven ducks, a few squirrels, a flock of Canada geese, and a fat heron. Spree is his first serialized novel.
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Part 1: Strawberry Fields Massacre Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Part 2: Slayer Rising Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Part 3: The Big Kill Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Part 4: Broken Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
&nbs
p; Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Part 5: Bloodlight Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
About the Author
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Compilation Copyright © 2014 by Michael Morley, Casa Strada Productions Ltd.
Spree: Strawberry Fields Massacre Copyright © 2014 by Michael Morley, Casa Strada Productions Ltd.
Spree: Slayer Rising Copyright © 2014 by Michael Morley, Casa Strada Productions Ltd.
Spree: The Big Kill Copyright © 2014 by Michael Morley, Casa Strada Productions Ltd.
Spree: Broken Copyright © 2014 by Michael Morley, Casa Strada Productions Ltd.