by Jonas Saul
“Oh, shit, I can take that. What a relief. I had no idea.”
“No idea? About what? Whether you cheated on your wife or not? You don’t know if you had sex? Who does that?”
“I was drunk. It was a huge party. I passed out. When I woke up, she was beside me and told me I was awesome the night before. I ran out of there and tried to forget the whole thing. Last week, I got the call and a demand for money to get an abortion. Then yesterday she wanted forty more thousand. I had no idea what I was going to do.”
“Holy shit! Just be happy that’s all over,” Bruce said.
“Should have listened to the text I sent you,” Sarah added. “That’s what my sister does. She tried to save you.”
“Why use the tortured guy?” Munro asked.
“To get me there, to meet Bruce and to convince Bruce to come and save Jake. The way things are sitting right now, I can see how it all ties in, but I never see the whole picture at the beginning. That’s Vivian’s job. All the bad guys are dealt with and all the good guys are safe.”
“Wrong,” Munro said. “You’re forgetting the tortured guy. He’s in the hospital and it doesn’t look like he’ll walk again for a few months. And who killed the scammer’s boyfriend, Tyrone Percy? Seems to me we’re just getting started.”
Sarah tapped the table. “That’s for the police to handle. If Vivian lets me in on something, then I’ll handle it. If she doesn’t, I’m out of here.”
That reminded her that her bike was a block from the warehouse in the west end and her gun was stuck inside on one of the racks between two fabric rolls. She’d grab her bike but probably have to leave the gun behind. Buying another one would be a bitch, but shit happens.
“Stick around for a few days,” Bruce said. “We may have more questions and I’ll need a full statement from you before you go.”
Sarah nodded.
“There was one more thing I wanted to ask you about,” Bruce said as he got up and paced, coffee cup in his hand. “When I showed up at the warehouse, you said something about the man with the scar.” Munro shot him a glance. “What was that again?”
“Earlier, you called him Russell Anderson.”
Bruce nodded. Munro turned her gaze to Sarah.
“He’s been following me. Then he showed up and helped out at the warehouse. That’s all I know.” She waited a heartbeat, then added. “You know him better than me.”
The two detectives exchanged a glance.
Bruce turned back to Sarah. “We know him well, but he lives a relatively quiet life. Frankly, I’m quite surprised he showed up tonight. Fighting crime isn’t his style.”
“What is?” Sarah asked. “Not fighting crime?”
They exchanged another glance. She was onto something. This Russell Anderson was an enigma. She needed to find him. She needed to learn how he knew about her and what business he had with her.
But that would have to wait. Once the police let her go, she would get her bike, find a motel, sleep the day away and then go find Russell Anderson.
She wondered if he was like her. Did someone from the Other Side speak to him? The last time she met someone like her, he tried to kill her.
If that was the case this time, why help her at the warehouse?
The answers she needed meant she would be staying in Vegas a lot longer than she wanted.
Chapter 14
By the time they let Sarah go, the sun was up, her nerves were shot from answering the same questions over and over, and her head ached from lack of sleep or too much coffee, or both.
She didn’t consider asking for a ride back to her bike. All she wanted was a hotel room, a bed and food. She would take a cab to get her bike later in the day or that night.
She started down the street, watching her back to see if Russell was following her again. If so, he was good. She couldn’t see anyone. Not even the cops.
She didn’t think to grab her sunglasses out of the bag on her bike. When she parked it late last night, she thought she would stop a torture and grab a motel room. Wandering the streets of Vegas the next day far from her bike seemed unlikely last night.
The air was already thick and hot. Within a block of the police station she broke into a sweat and her head doubled its pounding.
A block up Martin Luther King Boulevard, she could either go left, which would take her under the freeway bridge toward Las Vegas Boulevard, or go right and enter the large hospital where she would find a pharmacy. Pain killers would be in a pharmacy.
She decided on left, walked under the bridge and kept going until she hit the strip—Las Vegas Boulevard. At any time she could grab a cab, but it felt good to walk. She had nothing to do, nowhere to go and no messages from Vivian. She wanted a motel and a bed, but walking off the headache would work for now.
She checked her phone. No messages.
Across the street was a large drug store. She took that as a message to kill the headache.
“Fuck it.”
She crossed at the light and entered the drug store, a loud bell announcing her arrival. The pain in her head made her squint at the sound of the bell and the bright lights in the store. A short, older woman with white hair stood behind the counter. She smiled when Sarah entered.
“Headache,” Sarah said. “Painkillers?”
“Down aisle two,” the woman responded.
Her voice saddened Sarah. It reminded her of Esmerelda. Then she thought of Dolan and tried to mentally push them from her thoughts. Two good people taken too early.
In the painkiller section, she examined the small boxes for pill strength.
The front door bell sounded as someone else entered. Sarah could see the profile of the woman behind the counter down the length of aisle two. The woman greeted the new customer. Sarah looked away.
She chose the 400mg pill bottle. She could take three or four of them to knock the shit out of her headache and let her sleep like a log.
Fatigue can be a nasty bitch.
She walked along the aisle. The woman behind the counter backed up and bumped into the display behind her, fear evident on her face.
Oh, shit, now what?
A man stepped into view with a shotgun.
Sarah flattened herself against the side of the aisle. Her elbow struck a small boxed of tablets. It rocked on the shelf, teetered to the edge and fell. She reached out and caught it before it could clatter on the floor, then exhaled slowly, calming her nerves.
The aisle was too long for her to make it to the end undetected. Twenty feet from her sat a small square wire display container filled with bouncy balls. Crouched down on her knees, she might be able to remained concealed there. If this was a fast smash and grab, the guy with the gun would be in and out. No need to hide for any length of time. Anything longer than that, the people in the store were in trouble.
An image of her gun stashed between fabric rolls at the warehouse on the west side of Vegas flashed into her mind.
Great.
“Move, woman,” the man ordered.
The clerk stepped from behind the counter. The punk grabbed her shirt and dragged her out of Sarah’s view.
“What are you doing?” the clerk shouted.
“Shut up, bitch.”
The clerk grunted from an aisle over as she was smacked hard.
Sarah had to do something. But he had a gun and she didn’t. A robbery in broad daylight, walking distance from the police station, was brazen. Whoever was orchestrating this was either high on something or it was well-planned.
“I got the front covered,” another man yelled. “The door’s locked.”
A deeper voice shouted, “I got the back.”
A man appeared at the entrance to her aisle and scanned the length of it. His eyes stopped on her. He brought his weapon up and aimed it at her like he was hunting deer. He held it high, his eye peering through the sights.
“We got a customer here,” he yelled. “She was trying to escape. Should I just shoot her?”
> Two male voices responded. One told him to kill her. Shoot her in the face. The other said to keep her as a prisoner.
Sarah couldn’t control the full-body shake that took over. Lack of sleep and proper food and all that she had been through since arriving in Vegas was taking its toll. And she was unarmed.
The punk moved closer, his gun jostling in his hands.
She still had the bottle of painkillers she’d wanted to buy in one hand and the small box that she caught in the other. She released both boxes and let them fall harmlessly at her feet as the man approached.
He didn’t wear a mask of any kind, which wasn’t good. At least twenty-two, Caucasian, and he spoke with an accent. Sounded Cuban. Tattoos on his arms with a long one rising out of his shirt that covered the right side of his neck. He snorted hard, like he had a cold. The sign of too much cocaine.
When he was four feet from her, the weapon still held up and pointed at the center of her face, he stopped.
“On your knees, bitch.”
“Are you sure you want—”
“Now!” he shouted.
The gun shook in his hands when he yelled. She worried the weapon would fire by mistake.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Take it easy.”
She kept her hands visible and slowly got to her knees.
“Goodbye, whore.”
Then he pulled the trigger.
Chapter 15
Russell Anderson climbed out of the large box in the back of the pharmacy. He stretched and twisted his shoulders left and right to loosen up after being in the box for an hour. Then he flicked his hair out of his face, licked his palm and slicked his hair back, trying to keep it restrained.
The clock on the wall said he had three minutes to get into place. He didn’t want to do this but Sarah forced him to. If only she hadn’t come to Vegas. Now people were dead and she was in danger. Whether things worked out or not, it upset him to be so involved.
This wasn’t how he worked. He sent pictures and letters to the police so they could do their job. It wasn’t his job to fight crime, and he resented the fact that he had to step in today.
But family came first. After losing his daughter, he would rather die than let more of his family suffer needlessly.
He grabbed a metal bar and got in position behind the doors that led into the front of the store.
“Shoot her in the face,” someone shouted.
“Keep her as a hostage,” another voice called out.
He checked the clock. Feet scuffled on the other side of the door.
A loud boom sounded from the front of the store as someone fired a weapon. A woman screamed. Then another. He couldn’t tell how many.
But his job was to wait. Everything would work out if he waited.
With Penny gone from his life, he didn’t care if he died. That would be a blessing. In fact, on many levels, he was already dead. No one knew his name anymore. He didn’t speak it. He had no friends and existed day to day on the charity of rich strangers who travel to Vegas in hopes of hitting a large jackpot.
He kept his digital camera hidden when begging for money. When not begging, he took the pictures he was supposed to take. Then mailed them to Detective Collins. One of the reasons he stayed in Vegas was his father. As far as Penny was concerned, Russell’s father lived in Las Vegas and Russell was set to meet him any day now.
It was probably what kept him alive. The pictures he provided to the police offered him a purpose and a way to give back after what had happened to his daughter. If he died tonight, tomorrow, or next week, he would be content that he gave something back in the time he had left and he would welcome the end of his existence on earth.
Seeing Penny again was all he needed to heal his soul and giving his soul to the Higher Power above was the only way to see her.
The clock counted down the seconds.
Four …
Three …
He tightened his grip on the metal bar.
Two …
One …
The door beside him banged open. A young man walked through, a long barreled handgun in his grip raised and ready to fire. The man fanned the tip of the weapon right and then started to the left.
The door swung shut behind him.
Russell brought the bar up high and swung it down toward the back of the man’s skull.
It connected with a solid crack. The man’s knees gave out and he fell to the stock room floor like a sack of dirt.
Chapter 16
Sarah opened her eyes. She breathed in deep after holding her breath for a few seconds.
The gun had fired so close that her ears were still ringing. The smell of cordite hung in the air. Beside her, a pile of destroyed pill boxes and containers littered the floor.
Either the idiot had shot into the display rack by accident, or he had done it to scare her. Whatever the reason, she was certainly afraid, which angered her. Trigger happy idiots with guns almost always meant someone would end up dead or in the hospital for a long time. With no means of defense, she was powerless to stop the assailants attacking the drug store.
She kept her hands visible and her body in the open. If she saw an opportunity, she would take it. There was a high chance she would be shot and killed if she didn’t try something.
Vivian hadn’t warned her, which meant Sarah wasn’t prepared. No gun or pepper spray, and no idea what they wanted.
He was saying something about moving down the aisle toward the back, but she couldn’t hear him clearly yet. She turned and started walking, her mind going over options.
Then it occurred to her that the headache was completely gone. Vivian probably had something to do with that. If giving her the headache was meant as a way to get Sarah inside the pharmacy during a robbery, why not just tell her with another message? That way she could’ve been better prepared.
Or maybe having a weapon would’ve gotten her shot.
Since it was looking more and more like Vivian’s play, then everything would work out. If Sarah was wrong, she would have to figure something out. And fast.
At the end of the aisle, the guy pushed her shoulder hard enough to make her stumble.
“On the ground,” he shouted.
Her hearing was mostly back.
Another man held a similar shotgun near the pharmacy’s drug pick-up counter. He guarded the four employees. Three were in white lab coats and the other was the old woman from the front of the store.
“Is this all of them?” he guy watching the employees asked his partner.
“Yeah. No one else in the store.”
“Okay, go and guard the front. I got them. Carlo is in the back. When he comes out, we’ll load up and get out of here.”
The guy who brought Sarah to the back didn’t respond. He snorted hard and headed for the front of the store.
Now there was only one gunman in front of her with Carlo in the back.
Five hostages in total.
She had to do something and now would be the best time.
“Hey, Carlo,” the gunman yelled. “What’s taking you so long? Hurry the fuck up.”
He looked edgy, hopping from foot to foot. These boys weren’t professionals. This wasn’t planned. It looked like three guys, jacked up on something, wanted to steal drugs not available over the counter.
That gave this a more dangerous feel, unpredictable. The back area where the pills were stored was a large room. Sarah wasn’t close enough to a counter or an aisle to grab anything as a weapon. It had been a long time since she had felt this helpless. Usually she had something to say, or a hidden weapon. But with these kinds of assailants, they were too crazy to provoke without something to back it up.
It would come to her. She would just have to wait.
“Carlo,” he shouted louder. “You coming, man?”
“Leave the store now,” a voice said from the back room. “And you won’t be killed. Carlo is dead. Would you like to join him?”
