The woman pursed her lip, and for a brief second Chase thought that she would decline the offer. But then Ms. Hartman reached over, unzipped the bag, and opened it wide.
Only then did Chase allow her eyes to drift from the woman’s face and focus on the bag’s contents. Then she immediately looked back up again.
“Where did you get it from?” Chase asked.
Ms. Hartman frowned.
“Someone left it on my doorstep. I really, really need to know what the hell is going on, Chase,” she said, her tone suddenly softening.
Chase’s eyes darted back to the bag and she did some quick mental math. Although the bar was dark, the familiar ten thousand-dollar bands wrapped around bundles of cash were easily identifiable. If she had to guess, Chase would have pegged the amount at around five or six-hundred-thousand dollars.
She was positive that Ms. Hartman wasn’t involved now, just as she was certain that it was her son who had left her the cash. And yet, Chase was undecided if she should tell the woman about Mike, mostly because she didn’t know if he was still going to be alive by the end of the day.
“There was also this,” Ms. Hartman said, pulling a folded piece of paper from her pocket and putting it on the table between them.
There were three typed lines on the small section of paper that read:
Prick forth the airy knights, and couch their spears,
Till thickest legions close; with feats of arms
From either end of heaven the welkin burns.
Chase read the lines several times, trying to make sense of the poem. They meant nothing to her.
“What… what does it mean?” she asked, reaching for the paper.
Ms. Hartman snatched it back and put it in her pocket.
“I don’t know… I don’t know what any of this means,” Ms. Hartman said softly.
Silence fell over the two of them for a moment, their eyes locked, and Chase couldn’t help but feel for the woman.
Like Ms. Hartman, Chase’s own husband and son had abandoned her. While the circumstances vastly differed, the similarities were undeniable.
There was also the case of the three empty martini glasses by Ms. Hartman’s elbow. She could relate to that, too.
Chase took a deep breath and then dabbed at her forehead, which was still bleeding a little despite the glue that the paramedic had applied to the cut on her hairline.
“Ms. Hartman, there’s something you should know and something I think you should do. But first, you have to tell me something about your son, about Mike.”
Chapter 51
Stitts watched the exchange between Ms. Hartman and his partner at a distance. The woman was showing Chase something inside a bag, but from his vantage point at the bar, Stitts couldn’t make it out. Their discussion transitioned from angry to sad. And then something in Ms. Hartman’s face broke, but when Chase reached across to comfort her, the woman recoiled.
He heard his partner say that she was sorry, and for a second, Stitts thought tears might have appeared in Chase’s eyes as well. Then she pushed the bag back across the table to Ms. Hartman and made her way toward the door. As Chase passed Stitts, she grumbled that he should come with her under her breath.
Stitts casually finished his beer, left a ten on the counter, and then hurried after Chase.
Once outside, he was bombarded by a strange noise, something that sounded oddly like drums, but when he looked around, Stitts couldn’t see anything.
“What happened?” he asked, struggling to catch up to his partner.
Chase discretely wiped her eyes, clearly hoping that Stitts wouldn’t notice.
He did.
“She’s not involved,” Chase said. “Ms. Hartman has no idea that her son is still alive.”
They were almost at the car when Stitts grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around.
“What did she say, Chase? What the hell is going on?”
Stitts had it up to his eyeballs with all the secretive crap. It was nearly laughable that his main argument with Director Hampton to get Chase reinstated was that he needed a partner who he could trust, who would have his back. In truth, not only could he not trust Chase, but Stitts was no longer certain that if push came to shove, he wouldn’t be a bird on a wire.
His mind unexpectedly drifted to his mother then, lying in a hospital bed, likely all alone, and he felt a pang of guilt. He’d been so wrapped up in this case, so completely preoccupied with either trying to find Chase or to follow her around, that he’d completely forgotten about her.
The poor woman had suffered a stroke and her only son didn’t even know if she was still alive.
Stitts felt his own lids tingle and it took all his willpower to force his tears away. He would deal with his mother later, but right now, he had to catch a killer.
“Tell me, Chase. For God’s sake, tell me what the hell is going on.”
Chapter 52
“TRGR,” Chase said at last, staring Stitts in the eyes. She could tell that the man was frustrated, but Chase wasn’t sure how to express what she felt.
It was like the first time that she’d been transported into the eyes of the dead. How could you tell a person that without them thinking you were insane?
“What?”
“The Rich Get Richer; Mike Hartman’s not done yet. He wants to strike a dagger in the heart of the company that fucked him and his family.”
Chase opened the car door then and lowered herself behind the wheel. Stitts got into the front seat and Greg, who she presumed had been at the bar despite not seeing him, reappeared and got in the back.
Chase put the car into drive and started out of the parking lot. They had barely made it a quarter block before the traffic came to a complete standstill.
“Chase, tell me what she said,” Stitts implored. “What was in the bag?”
With a sigh, Chase finally answered the man.
“She had… she had a bag of money. Ms. Hartman had no idea where it came from, but it was from him; Mike left it for her.”
Stitts’s brow knitted.
“And you’re sure she’s not involved?”
“I’m sure,” Chase replied, leaning on the horn. All of a sudden, she didn’t feel like talking about this anymore.
“But how?” Stitts pressed. “How can you be so sure?”
“I just am.”
“Chase…”
Chase turned to face Stitts, her eyes blazing.
“I just know, okay? The woman just lost her husband and son… there’s no way you can fake that shit. Trust me, I know.”
Stitts looked like he was going to say something more, and Chase waited, teeth clenched. Eventually, he broke the stare.
Feeling her temperature rise, Chase rolled down her window. A drumroll suddenly filled the car.
The cool air served to dissipate some of her anger and frustration.
“I don’t think he’s done… there was a note, some weird poem. I think… I think Mike is going to blow up the casino,” she said quietly.
“Yeah, I don’t mean to interrupt, but that’s going to be next to impossible,” Greg said from the backseat. “Security is way too tight at The Emerald. Besides, there’s an APB out on Mike, and if he shows up at The Emerald, he’s going to be dragged away in chains. Sgt. Theodore may be a complete asshole, but he’s not an absolute moron. Despite everything he told you guys, I know for a fact that he has several teams staking out the place.”
Chase sighed again.
“Where then?” Stitts asked. “What did the poem say?”
“Some weird shit… it was all old English. Something about spears and night and… welkin, whatever the fuck that means.”
“Welkin?” Greg repeated from the backseat, pulling out his phone.
“I guess… I don’t know,” Chase snapped. “Do I look like an English professor? Do I smoke a pipe and have patches on the elbows of my jacket?”
Her frustration mounting again, fueled by the interrogation as
well as the traffic, Chase pulled the car onto the soft shoulder and started to drive.
“From either end of heaven the welkin burns,” Greg said from the backseat. “Was that it?”
“Yeah, I think so. Something like that, anyway. Where is it from?”
“Milton’s Paradise Lost.”
“Adam and Eve,” Stitts chimed. “Also about inequality, Satan, good and evil. Sounds appropriate.”
“Prick forth the airy knights, and couch their spears, Till thickest legions close; with feats of arms, from either end of heaven the welkin burns. That it?” Greg asked.
“Yeah, pretty sure. Any idea what it means? How it relates to Mike?” Chase asked.
“I’m no scholar,” Greg replied, “but I’m not thinking that it’s a cry for peace.”
“No shit.”
Chase had gone no more than a hundred yards on the shoulder before she came up beside a squad car. His cherries immediately flicked on, and the nose of the car inched out to block her path.
“Fuck,” she grumbled. Even before the officer got out of the car, she had her badge at the ready.
“Chase Adams, FBI. What’s going on here? What’s the holdup?”
The officer, sporting a wide-brimmed tan color hat, hooked a thumb over his left shoulder. Chase followed the man’s gaze and noticed a throng of people, a procession of sorts. They were all banging on drums and chanting something that she couldn’t quite make out.
“What is it?”
“It’s the Las Vegas Golden Knights — it’s their first playoff game tonight,” the officer said matter-of-factly. He grinned as he spoke, then, after looking around quickly, he untucked the front of his shirt. The officer raised it several inches, revealing a Golden Knights jersey beneath. “Two PM start time.”
Chase pressed her lips together.
“Cute. Well, is there any way to let me through? I’m on a case and—”
She stopped abruptly and turned to face Greg in the backseat.
“Did the poem say night or knight? Starts with a ‘k’ or an ‘n’?”
Greg glanced down at his phone.
“K — the medieval kind.”
Something inside her mind clicked.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she whispered. “Who owns the Vegas Knights? Is it the same people who own The Emerald?”
Greg grimaced.
“I’m not sure. I think—”
“Not a person, but a group,” the officer offered. “The Foley Group. And, yeah, I think that they also own a bunch of casinos on the strip, including The Emerald.”
Chase slammed her hands down on the wheel.
“I have to get through,” she ordered. “You need to stop the procession and let me through. Someone’s going to blow up the goddamn stadium.”
The officer’s face twisted into a mask of confusion and he looked to Stitts for support. When he wasn’t given any, he leaned down and peered into the backseat.
Recognition crossed over his features and his expression hardened.
He knew Greg, Chase realized. He knew Greg, and he cared for him as much as Sgt. Theodore did, which was to say not at all.
“I don’t think I can do that,” the officer said flatly, tucking his uniform back into his pants. “You’re going to have to wait until it ends.”
“What? Did you hear what I said? Somebody is going to blow up the arena!”
“Ma’am, I understand that you’re—”
And there was again: ma’am. Little more in this world bothered Chase as much as being referred to as ‘ma’am’.
There was no reasoning with this officer, she knew. Unbuckling her seatbelt, she turned to Stitts.
“You guys meet me there, I’m going to try to cut him off.”
Stitts’s eyes bulged.
“Chase, you can’t—Chase! Chase!”
But Chase was already out of the car and running toward the throng of Golden Knight fans.
Chapter 53
Stitts swore as he hurried around to the driver’s seat.
Within two hours of finding Chase again, she was gone. And, once again, there was nothing he could do about it. He considered going after her, of course, but she had disappeared into the crowd before he got his act together.
“You’re seriously not going to let us through?” Stitts demanded.
The officer looked as surly as ever.
“I put a call to Sgt. Theodore, but until I hear back from him, you’re going to have to wait in line like everyone else.”
Stitts ground his teeth.
“If anyone dies today, it’s on you, you fucking prick,” he said under his breath.
The officer looked shocked, but Stitts rolled up his window before he had the chance to reply. Then, when the man took a step back and reached for his walkie again, Stitts swerved around the nose of his vehicle and continued along the soft shoulder.
In the rear-view, he saw the officer shouting and waving his arms, but he ignored him. Several other cars honked as he passed, but Stitts paid them no heed. If he was forced to wait for the procession, then he would at least be the first in line.
The problem was, the line of fans seemed endless. Even craning his neck, Stitts couldn’t find the tail.
“Sure made some friends here in Las Vegas, didn’t you, Greg?” he muttered.
Immediately after the words left his mouth, however, Stitts regretted saying them. And when he caught the reflection of the man in the rear-view, his eyes downcast, he felt even worse.
“I’m sorry, I’m just frustrated. Ever since…”
… I picked up Chase from Grassroots, things have been difficult, Stitts nearly said. Instead, he went with, “… the case started, it’s just been one problem after another.
“Tell me about it.”
Stitts huffed.
“Speaking of which, it looks like we’re going to be here for a while. Why don’t you tell me what happened when you got hit in the leg?”
“I told you already; it happened during the Village shooting.”
Stitts looked up at the man in the mirror again.
“You sure did. But why don’t you tell me what really happened?”
Greg frowned, then he tucked his chin into his chest. At first, Stitts thought that the man would reiterate the lie he’d told before, but when he finally started to speak, there was no doubt that this was the truth. Stitts didn’t need Chase’s poker skills to figure this one out; it was in his face, his voice, his entire body.
“It was… it was pandemonium,” Greg began slowly. “At first, nobody even knew what was happening. We all thought the sounds were part of the concert. It wasn’t until the first few people started dropping that we knew that something was terribly wrong. And even then, the concert was so large and loud that I couldn’t communicate with the other officers. I was shouting for everyone to get down, to lie on the ground, to stay still, but barely anyone listened. There was… there was much blood.
“I was trying to shuttle people through the gates, to get them out of the kill zone, but everyone was pushing and shoving. It was craziness. I needed help to try and control them, but I’d somehow lost my partner in the crowd. Eventually, I found him,” Greg hesitated and took a moment to wipe tears from his eyes. “There was this small wall toward the south end of the Village, about shoulder high. My partner was trying to get over it, to climb to safety. For a second, I locked eyes with him and I saw that he was terrified, just completely overwhelmed by fear. He was trying to get over the wall over and over again, but it was slick with blood and he kept slipping.
“Everyone was scared — shit I was petrified — and I didn’t really blame him for trying to get out. The problem was, he was so pumped up with adrenaline — fight or flight and all that — that he didn’t even realize that there was a woman and her small child cowering beneath him. Every time he tried to climb up, he’d fall back down again. He was stepping all over them, kicking them, kneeing them, and he didn’t even know it. Instinct took over, an
d I ran to my partner, yelling at him to stop, to go around, but he wouldn’t listen.”
Greg was fully crying now and Stitts was surprised that he had tears in his own eyes.
“When I finally got to him, I pulled him off the wall and shoved him away from the woman who was barely conscious, and her wailing toddler. That’s when… that’s when… fuck… that’s when a bullet hit my partner in the chest. I couldn’t do anything for him… I couldn’t even get to him even though he almost certainly died instantly. Bullets suddenly hit the pavement all around us, and I did the only thing I could think of: I wrapped my body around the woman and child. That’s when I got hit in the leg.”
Drawing Dead (A Chase Adams FBI Thriller Book 3) Page 18
