by Erik Carter
Something more than a goddamn skew chisel.
He hadn’t thought to bring a gun with him to his own guest room, but damn if he didn’t wish he had one now.
But what could he do?
There was always an answer. Adaptation, remember? Adaptation was the answer to any question.
He looked around the room.
Carpet.
A dresser.
Nightstands, one with a laptop.
And there it was. On the far wall. The answer. His bit of ingenuity. Long, dark, decorative ropes hanging from either side of the designer drapes.
Maybe the chisel wasn’t so feeble an object after all.
He went to the window, brought the bloody chisel to the left rope, started hacking. The razor-sharp edge instantly began fraying the silky-smooth threads of the rope.
Yes, adaptation. He would get through this.
And just when his confidence was reaching its peak…
He heard gunshots.
Chapter Forty
BANG!
A horrible sound. A gunshot had struck Gavin’s Grand Cherokee.
He’d thought he’d seen something, out in the trees, a pair of shadows among the shadows, two figures. That’s why he’d kept the Bodyguard on his thigh, under his hand, his finger safely outside the trigger guard.
But he’d done that as a precaution. He didn’t actually think there was someone out in the trees. What he had thought were two figures advancing toward him and Jonah in the Grand Cherokee had surely been his imagination.
But his initial intuition had been correct.
There was a pair of people out there.
And evidently they were out to kill him and Jonah.
“Get down!” Gavin screamed at Jonah in the backseat.
Gavin ducked beneath the steering wheel just as another round struck the vehicle.
BANG!
The shots had come from the left, the same side of the wooded driveway where Gavin had seen the two figures in the shadows. He scrambled to the other side of the Grand Cherokee, over the center console, waving his hand for Jonah to follow.
Gavin threw open the passenger door.
Only to find one of the men there, a submachine gun in his hand.
Gavin didn’t realize he was doing it, but his right hand raised the Bodyguard, and his finger pulsed the trigger twice, two rounds, straight into the man.
The vicious-looking gun in the man’s hand went off, a blaze of fire from its barrel and more rounds thudding into the sheet metal.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
A fiery explosion in Gavin’s shoulder. Warm moisture dappled his cheek, his lips, the corner of his eye, squinting it shut. He tasted blood.
Pain had never been so palpable. Or so horrible. It went in waves through his body, shuddering and awful.
But a quick glimpse out the door revealed that he’d given as good as he’d gotten.
In fact, he’d given even better. The other man lay in a motionless pile at the edge of the woods.
With his good hand, Gavin clenched the passenger seat cushion and pulled himself over the seat, landed with a jolt on the concrete driveway. Jonah scrambled out as well and crouched next to him.
They bolted for the trees, Jonah putting an arm around Gavin’s back, steadying him. They positioned themselves around two trunks, peered toward the mangled Grand Cherokee, its hole-riddled sides and shattered glass, toward the other side of the driveway, where the other man still lurked.
Gavin held up a finger. And they listened.
A slight rustling in the trees on the other side of the driveway.
Gavin turned to Jonah, whose eyes were wide with fright, and mouthed, Stay put.
Gavin scuttled back toward the Grand Cherokee, Jonah reaching out behind him, those wide eyes begging him to halt.
Back into the vehicle, his torso over the center console, staying low, beneath the bottom edge of the window, out of sight.
The engine was still running, and he snaked below the steering wheel, pushed the brake pedal with his left hand, and with his right, pinched the button on the gear selector in the center console and pulled it down into the neutral position. He reached beneath the driver seat, fingers exploring, and found his steering wheel club. He shoved it against the gas pedal.
The engine roared.
He jammed the opposite end of the club into a contour of the floor panel.
And with one swift movement, he pulled the gear selector down, out of neutral and into drive, and jumped from the open passenger door.
The Grand Cherokee rocketed off, the passenger door whacking Gavin in the hip painfully.
He hit the concrete again, rolled, and finished in the prone position, and saw the Grand Cherokee barreling away.
He also saw flashes from the tree.
Muzzle flash from an automatic, another submachine gun like the dead man had used, firing at the vehicle.
Tat-tat-tat-tat!
Gavin had three rounds left in his five-round revolver. He squeezed the trigger rapidly, emptying the rounds in the vicinity of the muzzle flash.
And the muzzle flash stopped.
There was a thump of something falling and the crackle of branches.
Then a loud metallic crash in the distance as the Grand Cherokee ran itself into a tree trunk.
And then quiet.
Just the sound of the Grand Cherokee’s engine.
For a while, Gavin had felt nothing but adrenaline.
But now the pain returned. Flushing over him.
He collapsed onto the concrete.
Chapter Forty-One
Silence was hurt. He was hurt badly.
But not that badly.
Not as badly as he was letting on.
Among the many deadly skills Silence had in his Asset toolbox, one of the deadliest wasn’t at all violent.
Deception was a powerful tool. Silence could be a damn good actor when he wanted to.
So he could get past the pain of the beating he’d taken from the cans that now buried him.
And he could make the situation look a lot worse than it really was.
He groaned, loudly, as he got to his knees.
Mr. Accord approached at a slow walk, all the confidence fully returned to his smile. “You know, we’ve crossed paths all day, and yet we haven’t said a word to each other. Haven’t even made introductions. My name’s Finley. And you are?”
Silence didn’t respond. He just groaned again.
The groaning itself was genuine, as a fresh wave of pain rushed over his left ribs. But the volume and emphasis was all for show.
He’d made it sound as though he was on the edge.
He would continue the act.
But at the same time he kept his hand behind his back, fingers clenching a thin strip of metal, his hand weighted down.
“Not gonna give me your name? I wonder if that’s because you’re injured or because you just don’t talk,” Finley said. “See, earlier Carlton told me who he thinks you might be—a legendary vigilante, who hardly speaks, just tells his victims to ‘talk.’ Is that you?”
Silence didn’t respond. He just grimaced, moved his right hand out of the mound of cans, making sure it was clearly visible to Finley as it shook dramatically.
And with his other hand, he tightened his grip.
“Mr. Stokes didn’t want me to kill you until I figured out who you are,” Finley said. “But if you’re not gonna talk…” He reached to his waist, an undeniably characteristic movement, going for a gun concealed at his lower back.
It was time for Silence to drop the act.
He squeezed the paint can’s handle tighter and swung up, a huge, arching path.
A full can of latex paint weighs approximately 11.3 pounds. Silence knew this from both study and experience.
A full can of latex paint can easily break a man’s jaw. Silence knew this solely from experience.
This particular can wasn’t entirely full, but it was close.
Silence approximated its weight at a bit over ten pounds.
Which was evidently still enough weight to break a man’s jaw.
Crack!
Broken bone. A moist, distorted shriek emitted from Finley’s now grotesquely distorted face, mouth open, half of his lower row of teeth jutting at a bizarre angle to the rest of them. His hands went up, hovering a couple inches from his flesh, searching without touching, confused bewilderment in his wide eyes.
Silence wouldn’t let him wallow in confusion for too long.
Silence was a nice guy like that.
He swept Finley’s leg, bringing him to the concrete with a loud thud.
Silence dropped, joining him on the floor, knees on either side of Finley’s torso. Hands on the upper part of Finley’s head, the intact part.
A swift, hard tug.
Snap.
And a clean death.
Silence stood.
His headspace was chaotic. He needed to recenter.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, embraced his pain, felt it surging through his body in electric waves, acknowledged it, respected it, recognized where it felt the worst, at his right trapezius where one of the first cans to fall had struck him, a tender spot on his hip, one of his toes, a deeper breath, in his center, through his core, the pain was acknowledged, another breath, his feet in contact with the floor.
Then his eyes snapped open again.
A five-second meditation.
His vision adjusted to the tiny bit of light in the garage. He spotted his Beretta, all the way against the far wall. He crossed the room, retrieved it. To the door, threw it open, cleared it. And he cautiously proceeded back into the house.
As soon as he rounded the corner, he saw Kim and Carlton Stokes at the second-floor landing. Carlton had a sharp object to her throat, some sort of tool, one so out of place that it took Silence a moment to recognize it.
It was a chisel.
Kim had a crude noose around her neck, made of decorative, shiny rope, its ends frayed and fuzzy. One end was tied to the banister.
“You’re The Shadow, aren’t you?” Stokes said. “The silent vigilante. The Angel of Death, come to stop me. C11 has been a way of life for a select group of people for years, decades, and you came in and destroyed that in one day.
“My daughter was trying to destroy it too. I never wanted kids, but my wife, God bless her soul, couldn’t live without one. And then she passed away when Amber was only three, leaving me to raise the damn cripple. Amber got all adult-like, her little wannabe detective skills kicked in, and she decided she was going to investigate C11, found out about the Well, was going to expose us. She asked me to come clean. I told her I would. After she got married—just let me see my daughter married before I face the music. So you know what I did?”
He looked intently at Silence.
“I had the bitch killed.”
Silence bristled.
Kim wailed.
A deep dread in Silence’s stomach. It flushed throughout the rest of his body, coursing over the pain, overtaking it.
The entire day—from the briefing Falcon had given him, to the press conference, listening to Stokes’ speech at the police headquarters, to Ray Beasley’s townhouse, to the shootout at the slum—Silence had known Carlton Stokes was a creep, felt it in his bones, known that somehow Amber’s death was related to Carlton’s involvement with C11.
But the thought that Stokes would have his own daughter murdered hadn’t materialized. Not for a second.
Silence tried to visualize the moment—a man sitting down, at his desk, or maybe the kitchen table, weighing his options, making a choice, picking up a phone and ordering a hit on his daughter.
The vision was so dark that it was lost in fog, unimaginable.
And it was only then that Silence realized what a twisted adversary he was facing.
“That’s right, Mr. Shadow,” Stokes continued. “I wasn’t going to let my daughter bring an end to the Well. And I’m not going to let you either. I’m leaving now, and you’re going to stay. Because if the rumors are true, if you’re as valiant they say, I know what you’ll do next.”
He shoved Kim hard.
A scream.
And she fell off the balcony.
Chapter Forty-Two
Silence was already bounding to the staircase before Kim’s descent completed.
Her body snapped into position, twanging the crude noose tight.
But her neck didn’t break.
People often associated hanging with strangulation, but another common outcome—one that was often the desired outcome, in fact—was a broken neck.
As Silence ran over to her, he glimpsed Stokes darting past, down the stairs and out the door to the garage.
The bastard was going to get away—for now—but at least Stokes would find the curly-haired present Silence had left for him splayed on the concrete floor of his garage.
Silence put his hands beneath Kim’s boots, lifted, took the pressure off.
Kim gasped. Heaving breaths.
Silence gave her a moment to catch her breath then turned around, spinning to face the staircase, juggling her feet between his hands.
“Grab the railing,” he said.
She did, and Silence eased his hands off her feet until she was dangling from the balusters under her own power. Her fingers screeched against the varnish.
“I can’t hold on!” she screamed.
Silence bolted up the stairs, three steps at a time.
“I’m slipping!”
As he reached the halfway point, he heard cracking wood.
The balusters.
To the landing. Silence dropped to the carpet, reached through the balusters, one of which had snapped. He grabbed Kim’s wrist.
A glance to the knot a couple feet above his head.
With the railing between them, with her dangling from his grip, and with a rope connecting her neck to the handrail, there was only one way to get her free.
The handrail had to come down.
Silence reared back and drove his shoulder into it. A stab of pain. And a cracking sound from the balusters.
“What are you doing??” Kim screamed.
Silence shifted his weight back, thrust forward again. A shock of pain from the irritated spot on his trapezius where one of the paint cans had struck him.
The whole handrail wobbled. A few feet away, a crack lightning-bolted into the sheetrock where the rail met the wall.
Kim slipped. Her sweaty palms screeched down his forearm. He had her by the fingers now.
Only by the fingers.
One more slip, and he’d lose her.
They’d been lucky once already that she hadn’t broken her neck.
Silence wasn’t one to test his luck.
So he gritted his teeth, pulled his torso back as far as he could, and channeled all of his energy into his shoulder.
Crack!
The railing gave.
Pieces of the handrail and balusters flew into the open air, twisted in descent, then clattered on the floor below. And with one swift motion, Silence pulled Kim onto the landing.
They sat for a moment. Gathering themselves. Pain buzzed in Silence’s shoulder. His chest heaved. He was more out of breath than he’d realized.
“I know where he’s going,” Kim said. “Amber kept me up to date with her investigation. She found out that Carlton had a contingency plan. If there was ever a catastrophe with the Well, he was going to destroy the record room where everything about C11 is stored. It’s at the Northwest Community Police Station. Some of the records are paper, but a lot of them are on servers. He’d have to…” Her eyes widened. “Blow it up!”
A connection crackled in Silence’s mind. Carlton Stokes’ post-police-retirement line of work. He said it out loud. “Demolition.”
Kim nodded, her eyes still panic-wide. “That office is staffed all day, every day. People will die!”
“You can get us there?” Sile
nce said.
She nodded quickly.
Silence jumped up, grabbed her forearm, and yanked her to her feet.
“Let’s go,” he said, already streaking down the stairs.
Chapter Forty-Three
Jonah grunted as he readjusted his hold on Gavin. It was amazing how heavy a human form could be when it was completely limp. Alive. But completely limp.
Jonah wasn’t the strongest of men, but he’d still assumed that moving his former uncle-in-law to the mangled Grand Cherokee would be easier than this.
Although Gavin was still breathing, his eyes were barely open, barely registering the things Jonah said to him. And he wasn’t moving. At all. Dead weight.
There was so much of the man’s blood on Jonah’s hands it was even more difficult to get a grip.
Gavin’s face had gone horribly pale. And his eyes were closing, his head rolling to the side.
“Got to keep you talking, buddy,” Jonah said, as much to himself as to Gavin.
He needed to keep Gavin cogent. As physically weak as Jonah knew himself to be, he was even less skilled in medicine. But he assumed that if Gavin stopped talking, he might stop living.
Keep him talking.
He gave him a smile. “Who knew you were such a gunslinger, huh?”
No reply from Gavin.
Jonah checked.
Still breathing.
Just very, very pale.
Jonah repositioned his grip, grabbing lower, under Gavin’s ribs, a better handle. The patches of Gavin’s blood grew cold, sticky.
Headlights from the other end of the drive. By the house. An engine fired up, and a vehicle came down the driveway in their direction, quickly. When it was halfway down the drive, Jonah recognized the Honda Accord.
The guy who’d been following him and Brett all day.
Shit!
What could he do now?
Jonah’s heart pounded as he tried desperately to pull Gavin in the opposite direction, back to where they’d come from, to some form of cover.
But his fears were quickly allayed.
Because he saw Brett driving, Kim in the passenger seat.
The car came to a stop. Brett and Kim got out, and Brett ran over and without a word grabbed Gavin from the opposite side. Gavin suddenly moved, dragged primarily by Brett. Jonah was barely helping.
