by James Hunt
Chapter 2 – Present Day
Blue and red lights flashed in the night. Police cars and ambulances crowded the small clearing around the old saw mill and clogged the dirt road that led back to the highway. Dozens of flashlights lit up the thick forest that circled the mill. Dogs barked, looking to catch a scent.
Mocks turned from the lights and back to Rick. She kept hold of his hand while the paramedics checked his vitals and rushed him toward the ambulance on the stretcher. She jogged alongside, squeezing his hand tight while his remained limp.
“Hook up an IV and let the ER know we’ll need a transfusion once we arrive.” The paramedic examining Rick looked to Mocks and his voice softened from the robotic orders he gave his partner. “You riding with us?”
Mocks examined the deep, long cuts on Rick’s arms and legs. Haggard bits of flesh hung loose, and the white gauze used to stanch the bleeding were soaked with blood. “Yes.”
“Detective Mullocks!” Lieutenant Furst jogged over, his tie loose around his neck and dark circles under his eyes as he stepped in time with Mocks and the paramedics.
“Did you find him?” Mocks asked, slowing to a walk as they neared the ambulance.
“Not yet,” Furst answered, catching his breath.
“Where are the kids?”
“Someone from Child Services is taking care of them now, and their families are being notified.” Furst placed his hand on Mocks’s shoulder. “Take care of Rick. There isn’t anything else you can do right now.”
“But Grant—”
“Would want you to go.”
Mocks sighed. “That’s what got him into trouble in the first place.”
“I’ll call you the moment we find anything,” Furst said.
Mocks nodded and stepped up into the ambulance, the paramedics shutting the doors behind her.
“Let’s go!” The paramedic pounded on the front wall near the driver seat, and the ambulance sped forward, siren wailing.
The ambulance wobbled on the dirt road, and Mocks kept one hand on Rick and the other on the stretcher to keep herself steady. Rick’s oxygen mask fogged with every breath as the pair of medics dressed his wounds.
The ambulance lights accentuated the pallid color of Rick’s skin. He’d lost so much blood. “Will he make it?” She squeezed Rick’s hand harder.
The paramedic tossed a red stained cloth into the waste bucket. “I don’t know. If he does, he might lose his leg. The blood loss has impaired circulation to the body. And those cuts are deep enough to have caused nerve damage.”
Mocks nodded slowly. The ambulance hit a pothole and they rocked left and right and she gripped Rick’s hand and the stretcher harder to keep her balance. She watched Rick’s eyelids flutter as the paramedics applied the tourniquets to his wounds. She wasn’t sure how much blood he had left.
The nearest hospital was a local branch of Seattle General twenty minutes away. The ambulance pulled into the ER drop off, and Mocks jumped out with the paramedics as they wheeled Rick through the open doors.
“I’ve got a priority!” The paramedic said, a few heads turning in the ER lobby to their left.
A pair of nurses stepped in stride with Mocks and the medics down the hall. “We have room six set up for a transfusion, we’re getting the doctor prepped for surgery. What are we looking at?”
“Blood loss, multiple lacerations to limbs, possible concussions and organ failure,” the medic said, slowing as they maneuvered Rick’s stretcher to enter the room. Mocks went to step inside, but the nurse thrust out her arm.
“Ma’am, it’s better if you wait out here.”
Mocks stepped forward, buckling the woman’s stiff arm. “I need to be with him.”
With at least fifty pounds on Mocks, and six inches in height, the nurse tossed her back into the hall aggressively. “We need to get him ready for surgeory. The doctor will be down in a minute to give you an update. We don’t have time to babysit.” She disappeared into the room, and shut the door.
While Mocks hadn’t been to many ERs for situations like this, she expected a little more compassion when dealing with patient’s family members. But she understood the situation. They needed to do their work, and they needed to do it quickly. So Mocks let the nurse have her small victory, and she watched through the tiny window as the medics and nurses blocked her view of Rick as they prodded him with needles and hooked him up to machines.
Her hand twitched and she reached for the Green Bic lighter inside her jacket. When she looked down at her hand, she stopped. Blood shimmered under the florescent hallways over her knuckles. Rick’s blood.
Mocks flicked the flint, repeating the motion absentmindedly until her hand steadied. She paced back and forth in front of the small window, her mind racing about Rick, Grant, the Web. She needed to do something. If she couldn’t help Rick, then she might be able to help Grant. Because there was someone here who she could speak with.
Mocks pocketed the lighter and headed back down to the ER station, flashing her badge. “I need a room number for a patient. Parker Gallient.”
The nurse had a plain face, and pale. Her small, beady eyes looked at Mocks and she frowned. “He’s on the fourth floor, room four hundred nine, but—”
Mocks sprinted to the elevator, clicking the up arrow repeatedly. She stepped inside, squeezing between a pair of orderlies on their way out, and hit the fourth floor button.
If Gallient was willing to give up the location of the saw mill, then he might know of other locations important to whoever was running this game. She had to narrow down where they’d taken Grant. But that was if he was even still alive.
Mocks pushed the thought from her mind. No, Grant was alive. He had to be. They would have found his body by now, and no body meant they took hima live. No reason to drag a dead detective’s heavy corpse to another location when you can just leave it in the woods. They probably want to know how Grant found the place, and dead men were harder to interrogate.
The elevator doors pinged open and Mocks’s stomach soured. A cluster of officers stood outside Parker’s room. Yellow police tape covered the door and circled the officers in the hallway. She jogged over, ducked under the tape, and pushed her way to the front.
Forensics was already on scene. A flash from a camera captured the bloody sight of Parker’s lifeless body on the hospital bed. His head was turned toward the door and Mocks saw his expressionless face, his eyes still open. Blood stains covered his chest and stomach and dripped from his arm where it collected into little puddles on the floor.
The bandage that concealed Parker’s spider web tattoo had been ripped off, and the ink had been blacked out. Blood rolled down over the hand in thin strips, and Mocks backed away from the scene.
It was the Web. Had to be. They really could reach anyone at anywhere at anytime. Mocks knew they had a contact inside the federal government, it was the only way they could have got their hands on those documents they found. But now Mocks shifted thinking.
The Web could have other moles on the ground. Hell, they could have people in at her own precinct. She needed to find out how far it went, and she’d have to be careful moving forward. The death toll was climbing, and she didn’t want to add any more bodies to the count.
***
Owen Callahan tapped his finger on his knee in exasperation. He didn’t want to be out this late. He should be home, in bed at this hour. But complications were a part of the business. And he had no intentions of losing so close to the finish line.
His blazer was undone, and his growing gut spilled forward into his lap. He glared down at it with disgust. One thing he hadn’t envisioned in his senior years was the reality of the body you were stuck with. Modern medicine could only do so much. And every day that passed only intensified the longing for his own youth.
He caught his reflection in the driver side window in the sedan’s backseat. The tightened skin, the lifted cheek bones, collagen and Botox injections, all feigning the appearance of youth.
His thick head of shoulder-length hair had greyed, which was the only aspect of his age he enjoyed. He thought it made him look distinguished.
Owen tired of his reflection and looked to his bodyguards up front. They rarely spoke. And even though they followed whatever command was given, sometimes he felt like they were more prison guards than protectors.
One of the spider tattoos on the driver’s neck crawled out of the shirt collar and Owen looked down at the tattoo on his own hand. Three black spiders were inked into his skin, a forced show of good faith. It was The Web’s branding. And once you were in, there wasn’t any getting out.
Of course Owen knew the stakes when he signed up. He wouldn’t have taken the risk if the reward wasn’t worth it. And while his association with The Web presented challenges, the benefits far exceeded the costs.
The SUV pulled into the driveway of one of the several mansions in the neighborhood. Most of Seattle’s rich and powerful didn’t know a world beyond their butlers, chauffeurs, maids, or private chefs. And while some of them earned their fortunes by getting their hands dirty, none were dirtier than his own.
The driver opened Owen’s door, and he stepped out. He glanced back at the fountain in the center of the circled driveway that accented the extravagance of the house and rolled his eyes. All show. No substance.
The front doors opened and Owen was escorted inside with his two men, who left their rifles in the car. When dealing with the general population, Owen found it hard to build rapport when his associates had such firepower. Not that they’d need them here anyway.
The butler stopped at the open study doors and gestured inside. Owen entered and saw the walls were lined with bookshelves, though he doubted the senator had read anything in this room.
“Owen,” Pierfoy said, forcing a smile and a nervous chuckle. “Good to see you again.” The senator extended his hand, but Owen ignored it.
“Is it?” Owen sat in one of the leather chairs that circled a large coffee table made of solid oak, then reached for the open box of cigars. He clipped the end off, struck a match, and puffed smoke. He closed his eyes as the tobacco filled his senses. “You always did have the good stuff.”
Pierfoy took a seat in the chair next to him. “I’ll send you home with a box.”
Owen tapped the end of the cigar and ash fell to the carpet. “I’ll need more than just the smokes today.”
Pierfoy looked up from the freshly sprinkled ash. “What else do you need?”
“The laptop,” Owen said, taking another drag. “The one those detectives stole.”
Pierfoy opened his arms in a display of helplessness. “Owen, that computer has already been logged as evidence. It’s out of my hands.”
“No, it’s not,” Owen said. “In fact, I would say it’s very much in your hands, but I’d be happy to have my associates chop them off to alleviate your responsibility.” His face grew hazy in the smoke. “Then you’d be free and clear.”
Pierfoy’s cheeks turned pale, and he cleared his throat with a nervous twitch. “There’s no need for such talk.”
“Or maybe it’s not your hands that need to be taken from you.” Owen shifted in his chair, the leather groaning from his weight. He gestured the cigar toward the senator. “How old is your granddaughter now?”
Pierfoy’s face reddened, the fat beneath his chin wiggling. “Do you have any idea what I’ve done for you? Access to federal documents. Forgery. I’ve kept the FBI off your back for longer than anyone could have done. You wouldn’t even be here without me.”
“I think you have that backwards,” Owen said. “I didn’t contribute all of that money to your campaign for documents or helping me evade the authorities. I could have done that on my own.” He twisted the tip of the cigar into the armrest of the chair, snuffing out the fire. “I bought you because I wanted a puppet. So when I tell you to do something, you do it.”
“Owen, the cyber technician with the Seattle PD has already been in contact with a translator for the State Department,” Pierfoy said. “It’s been recorded. That can’t be undone.”
“I don’t care what you think can’t be undone.” Owen pressed his palm to the top of his head and flattened his hair as he ran his hand all the way back to his neck. He quickly cracked his neck left in frustration, stood, and walked to one of the bookshelves while Owen’s bodyguards stepped into the den and then closed the door behind them. “Anything I wanted.”
“Owen, I—”
“That’s what you told me. Remember that? It was enough money for you to run whatever type of campaign you wanted. And don’t pretend like you didn’t know where the money was coming from. You knew who I was. You knew what you were getting yourself into. Saying anything less would be a lie. And I knew you’d keep your word. Want to know how?”
The senator reached for the crystal glass on the coffee table. He sipped the brown liquor and then leaned back in his chair. “How?”
“Because you’re a United States Senator,” Owen said proudly, straightening his back and puffing out his chest. “You’ve built your reputation on the values and ethics of a nation that loves families, barbeques, and apple pie. You know who your biggest demographic was in your win for the Senate seat? Voters aged thirty-five to fifty-five. Voters with families, Senator. Families who would be shocked to learn about who you’re in bed with.”
“You expose me, and you’ll go down with me,” Pierfoy said, a snarl in his lip.
“My fall is much shorter than yours,” Owen said. “Plus I still have The Web, and all the money and influence it provides. But you, Senator, would evaporate into nothing.”
Owen moved intimately close and pulled up the sleeve that hid his spiders. He examined them and lifted it for the senator to see. “I have done things for this organization that still give me nightmares.” He dropped the arm, and the senator cowered. “I want that laptop.”
The bodyguards sidled up on either side of Pierfoy’s chair, and the man held up his hands, padding the air to try and keep the wolves at bay. “All right. All right. I’ll get it back for you. Somehow.”
Owen smiled and smacked the senator’s thigh. “Excellent.” He stole the glass of liquor from the Senator’s hand and took a sip. “Mm, that’s good.” He reclined back in his own chair. “Where are we at with the legislation?”
The pair of bodyguards remained on either side of Pierfoy’s chair, and he stayed low in the seat. “My aides have packaged it up nice and tight. It will be presented to the House next week. I’ve put together the necessary votes for it to pass.”
“And you’re confident in the congressmen you’ve selected?” Owen asked.
“Yes,” Pierfoy answered, reaching for the folder on the coffee table. “Page ninety-three to ninety-four.” He slid it toward Owen. “That’s where your clause was inserted.”
Owen opened to the suggested page, and there it was in black and white. “Very good.” He snapped the binder shut and tossed it back on the table. “I need the vote date moved up.”
Pierfoy laughed. “And I suppose you want a meeting with the President as well to discuss your concerns personally.”
Owen shrugged. “I don’t think we’d have much to talk about. I voted for the other guy. But if it’s on the table?”
Pierfoy’s smile faded. “Congress isn’t in session until next week. It’s the earliest I can get the vote to happen.”
“As majority leader, you can call a special session,” Owen said. “Call it.”
“And bring more attention to the legislation?” Pierfoy asked. “I don’t think it’s best to highlight it any more than I already have.”
“But that’s the best part about our democratic process, Senator.” Owen stood and buttoned his jacket. “No one will care. Let me know when you have the laptop and have pushed up the vote date.” He walked toward the door but stopped when a picture caught his attention.
It was of the Senator’s family, his entire family: wife and three children with their spouses, and six g
randchildren, all lined up in matching outfits in the wilderness. It was incredibly folksy, good election bait as the Senator liked to say. He pointed to the only granddaughter in the bunch. Couldn’t have been older than nine. “She’s beautiful.” Owen turned to Pierfoy whose cheeks had lost their color. “Oh, and I’m going to need one last thing from you before I leave.”
Pierfoy swallowed, sinking into his chair, his eyes glued to the picture in Owen’s hands. “What?”
“The Detectives that were assigned to those abduction cases, the ones that spoiled that fresh shipment of girls the other day, I want to know more about them.”
“Why?” Pierfoy asked, slightly surprised. “The woman is going to be taken off the case and you’ve killed Grant, right?” He leaned forward. “Haven’t you?”
Owen set the picture back on the mantle and tucked his hands into his pants pockets. “Tell me more about Detective Chase Grant.”
Chapter 3
Mocks paced the hallway outside of Rick’s room as he was prepped for surgery, her cell phone glued to her ear. The doctor had gone inside ten minutes ago, and Rick still hadn’t been wheeled to the operating room, and Rick’s body was still blocked from view by the nurses inside and the call went to voicemail.
“Hi, you’ve reached Sam. I’m not available at the—”
“Shit.” Mocks ended the call and dialed the precinct, where she was lucky enough to have Banks pick up the phone. “Hey, it’s Mocks. I need Sam. He’s not picking up his cell.”
“Let me find him,” Banks answered.
“Hurry.” Mocks chewed on her nails and glanced into the narrow window again. The doctor was talking a lot. She didn’t like that. She didn’t like the wall between her and her husband. She didn’t like that she couldn’t be in the room with him. He shouldn’t even be in that room at all.
“Found him,” Banks said. “I’ll put you through.”
A quick dial tone, and then one ring before Sam answered. “Hey, Mocks—”
“Where are you at with the computer we got from The Web?” Mocks asked.
