by Matthew Iden
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014 Matthew Iden
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477829448
ISBN-10: 147782944X
By the Author
Crime Fiction
{the Marty Singer Mysteries}
A Reason to Live
Blueblood
One Right Thing
The Spike
The Wicked Flee
{short story collection}
one bad twelve
Psychological Suspense
The Kindness of Neighbors
Fantasy & Science Fiction
{short stories}
Sword of Kings
Assassin
Seven Into the Bleak
{anthology contribution}
Walk the Fire #2: Trial By Fire
For Renee, who continues to make the whole thing possible.
For my family.
For my friends.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Epilogue
Sample: The Wicked Flee
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Notes
Chapter One
Killing a quarter hour on a DC subway platform is like being trapped in George Orwell’s head the day before he started writing 1984.
Back in the seventies, the transit authority tried to sell the people-mover as a hallmark of progress and cheer by calling it the Metro, but the stations are still drab, concrete vaults with low lighting not so different than that of a funeral parlor. Coffin-sized depressions meant to dampen the crushing noise of trains and passengers dimple the ceiling, the pattern reminiscent of a hive colony of killer insect-men from a B-grade horror flick—a joke I’m sure wasn’t lost on the thousands of drones who used the Metro to get to their jobs every day. Terra-cotta floor tiles laid in a honeycomb pattern give a fleeting sense of emotional warmth that is immediately nullified by flickering digital billboards, while a strange smell of burnt vinyl and industrial fluid hangs in the air of most stations.
Luckily, taking the Metro was unusual for me. Thirty years as a homicide cop in the city meant I had access to my own wheels at all times—waiting seventeen minutes for transportation to arrive wasn’t going to cut it when someone’s been shot. So for three decades I’d grown accustomed to traveling any way I liked, any time I liked. I’d pulled my cruiser onto sidewalks, across the mouths of alleys, on lawns with one wheel hovering off the ground.
But those days were gone. A parking ticket had made me rethink my low opinion of the Metro and now I was leaning against a half-wall in the Waterfront Metro station, brooding and thinking gray, Orwellian thoughts, waiting for the north- and westbound Green line to chug from its endpoint at Branch Avenue and pick me up at Waterfront. I was on my way home after visiting my adopted daughter, Amanda, at her new job as a program manager at FirstStep, a women’s shelter in Southeast DC. The journey was just six or so stops, but it would be half an hour before I saw my front door.
I sighed and squirmed. I’d forgotten to bring a book—a mistake no savvy Metro-goer would make—so, to pass the time, I started naming the kings and queens of Britain after the Conquest, moved on to listing the starting offensive line for the 1982 Super Bowl Champion Redskins, and, finally, just watched people.
A gaggle of teens ate fries and laughed about something that had happened in school. A white businesswoman—youngish in a smart-looking skirt and blazer, eyes glued to her smartphone—negotiated the escalator and took a spot on the rubber mat close to the edge of the platform without once looking up. Three guys in paint-speckled work clothes, holding hard hats and backpacks, stood and talked quietly to one side, already done with the day by early afternoon. A repairman in a neon vest and Carhartt overalls jawed with a young Metro cop. The station’s elevator opened and an elderly woman exited, then moved slowly and painfully to the end of the platform. A slim black or Hispanic guy in jeans and an untucked dress shirt rode the escalator down, white earphones in his ears, head bobbing to music. He was followed by two bureaucrats with plastic ID tags on their lapels, a fat guy with a cane, and a young mother trailing two little kids, blond with blotchy red faces. After a few minutes, enough commuters had filled the platform to turn it from a collection of individuals to an indiscriminate mob of people, and I let my mind wander back to history and football.
Soft amber floor lights near the lip of the track began pulsing, a warning that the train was close. People rose from their seats to shuffle closer to the edge of the platform, trying to guess where the train doors would stop, jockeying for the best spot out of habit. I stayed where I was. Middle of the day, a handful of riders getting on, probably few people looking to exit—I could afford to lean on my wall, then walk straight onto the train.
The train, still out of view, gave an unexpected blast from its horn, a warning honk, as if we hadn’t already heard it thundering down the track. Everyone winced as the sound bounced off the cement floors, walls, and ceiling. Headlights lit the curved walls of the tunnel, then became bright points of light in the darkness. There were two more earsplitting honks and then the train shot out of the tunnel to our right like a bullet out of a gun. We watched it come down the track.
Had I pushed away from the wall and gotten to my feet, my head would’ve been down and I would’ve missed what happened. If I’d glanced at my phone or scratched my nose or even blinked, I wouldn’t have seen a thing. As it was, I was watching the incoming train like it was on a movie screen and couldn’t have had a better view of what happened next.
With exquisite timing, a man from the crowd took three running steps and exploded into the lower back of the smartly dressed businesswoman, delivering a perfect body check. The woman flew into the path of the train as though she’d jumped and, in my mind’s eye, the movie froze in place in that instant. Her head was thrown back and her mouth open like she was singing an aria, while her wrists and ankles trailed from the impact as though she were an angel learning to fly. A stylish neck scarf floated behin
d her like a pennon. Then, with terrifying speed and violence, she was swept away by the front of the train as though she’d never existed.
Images and sounds fractured from that one instant into jagged, discrete chunks, like reflections on a broken mirror. The train’s emergency brake slammed on, the scream of the wheels merging with the screams of the onlookers on the platform. Those who had been behind or to the left of the woman had seen everything—those to her right, watching the train approach, had only a vague idea that something horrific had happened. Some rushed after the train while others stood frozen, their eyes huge with the whites showing or their hands over their mouths in shock. The repairman had dropped his tool belt and was one of those sprinting down the platform, yelling for help, while the Metro cop stared down the track, his mouth literally hanging open. One of the bureaucrats had grabbed the shoulder of the other, the fabric of the man’s suit bunched in his fist as they both stared down the track. The teens hugged each other and started to cry.
Instinct took over and, like many of the others, I took a half dozen steps towards the front of the train before another part of me—the one that had been conditioned by thirty years of police work—kicked in and I stopped myself. The woman was dead. Or she had more help than she could possibly use. Nothing I could do would matter.
But no one had gone after the man who had just killed her.
I spun on my heel and sprinted to the escalator to the right, the only way off the platform and out of the station. I had no idea who I was looking for. My attention had been on the woman and I had only a blurred memory of the man’s shape, nothing of his age or race. I replayed the memory in my mind while the screams and shouts rose around me—my own heart was slamming in my chest and I was hyperaware of the seconds slipping away. A slim form, medium height—young?—and a red baseball cap jammed low on a head. A cap. Look for the cap.
I took the escalator steps three at a time. Another Metro cop and the station manager jogged towards me, keys and nightstick and radio jangling as they moved, already on their way to the scene. The cop yelled, “Hey!” as I ran past, but I ignored him and aimed for the turnstiles that marked the first hurdle out of the station. A few commuters, unaware of the tragedy downstairs, were moving through them in my direction. Most were engrossed in books or their phones and one unfortunate twentysomething in a suit and tennis shoes wandered unconsciously into my path. At six-three, two-ten, I wouldn’t have come close to making the cut for that Redskins lineup I’d been daydreaming about, but I was in full stride and highly motivated and I knocked him ass over tin cups without so much as blinking. Book, glasses, and body went flying. A plaintive, “What the fuck?” floated up from the ground and followed me as I sprinted away.
I didn’t trust myself to leap the turnstiles, so I slammed through the narrow gate reserved for Metro workers and sprinted for the escalators out of the station. Luck was with me—sometimes the escalators aren’t running, in which case they are just stairs and, at fifty-four, I wasn’t about to run up three hundred steps without inviting heart failure. As it was, I barely made it to the top even with mechanized help. The escalator popped me out into the station’s glass-covered entrance and I whipped my head around, looking for the man in the cap.
The streets were crowded with mothers and their kids, retirees shuffling to the grocery store, workers on break. Roadwork blocked the right-hand lane going north on New Jersey Avenue, causing cars to choke the street for a block or more. A bored construction worker, leaning on a manual STOP sign and with a walkie-talkie dangling from his hand, was holding up traffic. I jogged to him, out of breath and sweating.
“You see a slim guy in a baseball cap come out of the Metro?” I asked, knowing how stupid the description sounded even as I said it. “Running like hell?”
He gave me a look. “Get away from me.”
Adrenalin kicked in. I grabbed the lapels of his flannel shirt with both hands and lifted him half off the ground, screaming into his face, “Did you see a guy in a baseball cap?”
His eyes popped out. “Jesus, man. No.”
I let him go, swearing—but halfway down New Jersey I saw a woman sprawled on the sidewalk being helped to her feet by a couple of passersby. I left the construction crew and ran towards the woman, slowing down just long enough to shout, “Baseball cap?”
Two of them looked up and pointed in the direction I’d been running, towards K Street. I waved a thanks and took off. I still had a chance to catch him—slim, yes—but still a chance. Even with the wasted seconds on the platform and asking the construction guy for directions, I couldn’t be more than a half minute behind the guy. If I could keep him in sight until I could call the police, I might manage a collar.
There. I caught a flash in between the bobbing heads of pedestrians and cars. I ran after it, wondering as I went what kind of amateur I was chasing. A simple dodge down a side street would’ve thrown me off his trail, but this guy had left the scene in a straight line like he’d been shot from a catapult. I shrugged. Crooks and killers aren’t smart and pushing someone in front of a train wasn’t exactly Machiavellian in its complexity.
And it sure would be swell if he did something else stupid, because my breath was coming in ragged gasps and my legs already felt rubbery and weak. I tried pacing myself, evening out my stride so that I could get some wind back while still keeping the baseball cap in sight. He might slow down if he thought he was far enough away, which I really wished would happen. For a second, that actually seemed to be the case as he approached K Street. But some subconscious sense of my pursuit must’ve spurred him on and I swore as I watched him run straight into traffic, causing car brakes to be slammed and horns to be honked.
He made it across K in one piece, but traffic was flowing by the time I got there and I watched in frustration as he sprinted away. I tried twice to jump into the break between cars, narrowly missing getting flattened each time. The light turned and I finally made it across the thruway, jogging down New Jersey Avenue with my head on a swivel. The rush was even heavier here and I stood on the corner, looking for any sign of the guy in the cap. But either he’d set a new world record for the half-mile dash or had finally used his head and turned a corner, because he was gone.
Now that I could give up, I bent over double—hands on knees, my heart slamming in my chest—and swore again, loudly, creatively, and with feeling. In between sucking great lungfuls of air, I cursed the guy’s mother, his father, DC traffic, cars, stoplights, the Metro, middle age, and bad luck. A few people walking by gave me a wide berth and glanced my way, checking to see how crazy I was, then moved along when I pulled out my cell phone. Not crazy enough to rate, I guess.
Hands shaking with fatigue and frustration, I dialed 911 and waited for someone to answer.
Chapter Two
“Were you able to give them a description of the guy?” Amanda asked, picking a set of towels off the shelf. She glanced at the price and put them back. It was the day after my post-homicide footrace and Amanda had called, asking me to meet her at a housewares store in Arlington. In the chaos of the police interview and giving my statement, I hadn’t had a chance to even call and tell her about the madness I’d seen unfold just a few steps away.
“He was fast,” I said sourly. “Wore a hat.”
“That’s it?”
I closed my eyes. I saw a shape, an outline…and that was it. “I’m the typical eyewitness,” I said, disgusted. “It was over so quickly, I can’t remember a thing about the guy. I couldn’t tell you if he was black or white or Martian. My brain shuts down when I try to paint a picture of him in my head. The cap never came off his head, I know that.”
“The cops still couldn’t catch him after everything you did?”
I shrugged. “Until I called 911, they had no idea anyone was even chasing the guy. By the time they got a cruiser to my location and I explained what I was talking about, he was gone.”
She harrumphed on my behalf. “You b
usted your hump trying to keep up with him. The least they could do is make an effort.”
I turned to look at a display of mixing bowls, hiding a grin. Amanda was fond of using what she thought was cop and tough-guy slang, stuff she saw on TV. Like busted your hump.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I swallowed a bug. What are we here for, again?”
We were prowling the aisles, pricing everything from cheap kitchen utensils to bath towels. It wasn’t what I preferred to do with my weekends—the sterile fluorescent light and windowless interior depressed me—but Amanda had just moved into a studio apartment of her own after living in a group house of nine recent college graduates who, as she put it, “Had varying ideas about hygienic upkeep.” I knew she was excited about stocking her new home and playing house. The least I could do was help her carry stuff out to the car.
She sighed as she lifted the edge of a sample curtain. “I wish my mom was here to help with this. I couldn’t decorate a doghouse.”
“Something wrong with my opinion?”
“Marty, until I showed up, you’d had the same wallpaper for twenty-eight years.”
“It was good wallpaper.”
She didn’t quite roll her eyes. “Stick to what you’re good at, please.”
“Stopping lunatic gunmen from kidnapping you?”
“Yes.”
“Not giving fatherly advice?”
“Fatherly advice is fine. Just nothing to do with colors. Or material. Or style.”
“What do I get out of this?”
“Daughterly advice,” she said sweetly. “But it’s even better than the real thing, since you’re not actually my father. If we were related, we wouldn’t be able to stand each other.”
“There’s that,” I said. Amanda had gone from complete stranger to informally adopted daughter in a little more than a year, pulling me out of a mental tailspin and giving me purpose. Granted, she’d done it by pleading with me to save her from her mother’s deranged killer, but the need to be useful again had helped me through one of the darker points in my life. One that I wasn’t quite out of, in fact.
