The Mentor

by Monticelli, Rita Carla Francesca

  “Daniel Pennington was collateral damage,” Shaw said, finally breaking the silence. As soon as he said that, he could feel fear rising up inside his chest. “He was looking for someone else—someone who lived at the address until just a little while ago and who is still listed as a resident there.”

  “Adele,” moaned Miriam. “Your Adele!”

  “Jesus, he’s headed for her!” Eric spun around and looked up at the train timetables. “The next train leaves in seven minutes. Too long!”

  “We’ll take my car!” exclaimed Miriam, running back toward the exit.

  She put on the safety glasses and ear protection, then loaded the weapon.

  She’d done this hundreds of times and moved automatically, but never before had it been so fundamentally important to follow procedure down to the letter. She was holding the only ironclad proof that connected Garnish with the murders. His prints were the only ones on the gun. If the bullets gathered in the four murder cases could be connected to this gun, it would be enough to put the man behind bars.

  “One shot,” announced Jane, pointing the pistol into the box. A moment later she pulled the trigger.

  The sound of the shot echoed around the ballistics lab, while the bullet penetrated into the gel and came to a stop a little more than halfway through the block.

  The criminologist extracted the bullet and set it beneath the microscope. Then she repeated the procedure, this time with the silencer equipped, since it might affect the marks the barrel made on the bullet.

  He was clinging to the handle above the car window with one hand while holding his cell phone to his ear with the other.

  Next to him Miriam was driving full throttle, sirens blaring, accelerating whenever she had a chance, and slamming on the brakes or swerving to one side whenever they came upon some obstacle. “Get out of the way, you idiot!” she shouted at another driver, whose only fault was to have stopped at a stoplight.

  On the other end, the phone continued to ring. Suddenly someone picked up . . . but it was just the answering machine. “Fuck!” shouted Eric. “Adele! Don’t go to my apartment; go back to the office. I repeat: don’t go to my apartment! As soon as you get this, call me. Immediately!” He hung up and dialed another number as quickly as he could. On the fifth ring, his own answering machine message came on. She wasn’t there or wasn’t able to answer. His mind filled with terror, he managed to make a third call.

  The cell phone ringtone was that of a drumroll. Martin, sitting in front of his computer, reached out and touched the screen, answering with the speakerphone.

  “Let’s see that image again,” said Jane, who was standing behind him.

  “Stern here,” said Martin, distractedly.

  “Trace Adele’s cell phone with the GPS, immediately!” shouted Eric. They could hear sirens blaring in the background, as well as the engine of Miriam’s car roaring.

  “Eric?” said Detective Hall.

  “Immediately!”

  “Yessir.” Martin started typing away on his keyboard.

  “We checked Garnish’s gun against the bullets we gathered in the other cases,” continued Jane. “It’s a match. He’s not getting away this time.”

  “We have to catch him first,” said Shaw, his voice nearly drowned out by a honking horn.

  “Where the heck are you?” asked Jane. He’d run out of the building, but she had no idea where he’d gone.

  “We think Garnish is going after Adele.”

  “What!” Jane was incredulous. What the hell was happening? Why would Garnish go after Adele?

  Stern stopped moving, drawing Hall’s attention to the image on his screen. “Um, boss . . . here it looks like Adele’s cell phone is . . . in y-your apartment.” Martin was stammering as if he’d said something he wasn’t supposed to.

  However, the location on the screen made Jane smile. “What’s Adele doing at your house, boss?”

  “It’s not what it looks like,” said Eric curtly. Then he hung up.

  “To me it looks like you two have gotten together,” said Jane to no one in particular, amused at her discovery.

  His heart in his throat, Eric ran up the stairs two at a time until he reached his floor. When he came around the corner and could see the door to his apartment, he skidded to a stop. It was open slightly.

  Miriam came running up behind him, but he waved back at her to be silent.

  He took out his cell phone and dialed Adele’s number again. A few moments later he heard a phone ring inside his apartment. It was close. This was the worst possible situation they could have found themselves in. If she was in there, she was unable to respond. The open door made him fear the worst.

  No. No. He couldn’t lose her now, not after they’d finally found one another. A wave of pain cut through his thoughts. He tried to push it away. He refused to believe it. He had to believe he’d gotten here in time.

  Eric snapped the cell phone shut and stuck it in his pocket. He took out his gun, and so did Miriam.

  They walked cautiously toward the door. Eric stretched out one hand and pushed the door delicately to open it the rest of the way. The hinge squeaked faintly, interrupting a silence that was otherwise complete save for their stifled breathing. He stopped, swearing to himself.

  Miriam moved to the other side of the door and leaned over to look in through the crack.

  “See anything?” whispered Shaw.

  She shook her head, then took a small flashlight out of her pocket and turned it on, pointing it out from the barrel of her gun. Then she gave the door a sharp shove, throwing it wide open. Trying to make as little noise as possible, they entered the apartment one after the other, crossing through the entryway and heading toward the living room.

  Eric’s eyes were drawn to something. He’d almost stepped on it: Adele’s smartphone, abandoned on the floor not far from the door. He looked around. The little table by the front door had been moved slightly, as if it had been bumped.

  He kept walking inside. Part of him wanted to stop right there, terrorized at the thought of what he might find in one of the rooms.

  The living room, bathed in light from the street lamps outside, looked in order. Detective Leroux leaned her head through another doorway to check the kitchen, leaving Eric with the bedroom.

  He swallowed and clenched the grip of his pistol even more tightly. Seen from the entrance, the room looked dark. He took out his flashlight and pointed it ahead, holding it close to the barrel of his gun just like Miriam. He went in. He could see the bed, still mussed up. Something dark on the floor drew his attention, and he pointed the flashlight at it. Adele’s big bag.

  He stood there for a moment, struggling to catch his breath. Then he flicked the switch and turned on the light. The room was empty.

  “I checked Brian’s room and the other bathroom too,” said Miriam, coming up behind him. “There’s nobody here. Did you look in there?” she asked, pointing to the bathroom connected to the master bedroom.

  Eric didn’t answer. He was still staring at the bed. There was no sign of Adele, but all her things were still here, including her phone. There was only one explanation. “He took her.” The mere thought that Garnish may have taken her sent chills down his spine. They could be anywhere by now. How on earth would he find them?

  No, wait a minute.

  “Nothing,” said Miriam, who had checked the last bathroom in the meantime.

  There was something missing.

  Eric returned his gun to its holster and went back toward the front door. He knelt down and picked up the smartphone. From there he started carefully checking the floor. “Turn on the light,” he said to Miriam.

  The room became bright.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  “Did you notice if my car was parked out front?”

  “I didn’t see . . .
,” said Miriam. She wasn’t tense the way she had been before, but her anxiety was now revealing itself under the light, her body continuously trembling.

  Eric stood up and put his hand on her forearm, blocking her involuntary movements. He couldn’t take care of her, not right now. He had to think of Adele.

  Miriam met his quiet gaze and nodded as if she’d read his thoughts.

  Eric left her there and went back into the living room, but this time he headed straight for the balcony.

  Miriam came to his side by the railing. “He came here on the tube,” she muttered. “That bastard came here on the tube.”

  “He stole my car!” Eric took his cell phone out of his pocket and pressed redial. When he heard the click of someone picking up on the other end, he started talking right away, not even waiting for an answer. “Stern, locate the GPS signal on my car. Now. Quickly!”

  “We should be close,” said Miriam, slowing down her car. “This is the neighborhood.”

  Following Stern’s directions, the two had driven out to an industrial zone on the outskirts of the city. It was now after ten in the evening, and at this hour the wide, identical streets in this corner of the city were all deserted, save for suburban fauna busily rummaging around in the garbage cans.

  “There it is!” exclaimed Eric.

  Just ahead they could see his SUV parked along the side of the road, outside of a little red brick building. It looked like a warehouse, but one that hadn’t been open for a long time.

  Without saying a word, Shaw opened the door and practically leapt out of the car, which was still moving.

  “Wait!” said Miriam, hitting the brakes. “That place must be enormous. We have to wait for backup.” But her voice was already far behind him.

  Eric ran across the cracked asphalt and followed the outside walls of the building, looking for a way in. Given that his SUV was parked here, they had to be relatively close by. He turned the corner, headed down a side street that was poorly lit by an old street lamp. The air was channeled down this street, creating a strong current that made the lamp sway slightly. A gray cat appeared out of nowhere, dashing past him from its hiding place. The cat hissed at him as it passed, its tail raised and fur standing on end. Eric feinted a kick at it and the animal took off more quickly than it had appeared, disappearing into the darkness.

  When he turned around again toward the wall, he thought he could just make out a dark door a few yards away. He went over and gave it a push. It opened immediately but was blocked halfway open. Eric squeezed in through the gap, holding his gun and flashlight out firmly in both hands.

  The beam of light filled the space in front of him with dancing shadows. The warehouse wasn’t abandoned at all. The enormous space was filled roughly two-thirds with boxes of all shapes and sizes. It was probably a storage space for valuable stolen merchandise—Garnish’s business. The boxes divided the large warehouse into a maze of corridors.

  The flash of a reflection drew his attention. There was something metal to the left, a staircase. He pointed his flashlight on it. It led up to a walled-in loft space, also built of metal, that ran along one side of the building all the way to the opposite wall. Originally it must have contained the building’s offices.

  Eric blinked furiously. Was that a faint light he could see?

  He didn’t have time to think. He went up the stairs, careful not to make any noise. When he reached the top he turned off the flashlight. Keeping his hand on the wall to his left, he walked slowly forward until he’d reached the other end.

  He was right. There was a very faint ray of light filtering out from beneath a door, even though the door was closed. Now he could see it clearly in the surrounding darkness.

  He walked over to the door, listening intently. Maybe he should simply charge in with his gun out and then decide what to do from there. He had little concern for his own safety. He had to save Adele. Garnish wanted him—Eric—and that’s the way things should be. The thought that he was stepping into a trap made almost no difference to him.

  He put his hand on the door. He listened carefully, trying to figure out if there were any sounds emanating from within, but he couldn’t hear anything besides the wind outside, which whined through fissures in the walls of the old building.

  He turned the handle and pushed the door open, pointing his gun ahead of him, ready to fire. Suddenly it was as if every sound disappeared, sucked out of his consciousness. “Thank God,” he murmured in spite of himself.

  Adele was sitting in a chair. A thin line of red ran down from her eyebrow, alongside her eye and then over her cheek, terminating in a dangling drop of blood. An ugly bruise stood out on her pale face, coloring her cheekbone. She was shaking her head violently in his direction.

  For a moment Eric didn’t understand. His instinct was stronger than any reasoning. “Adele!” he exclaimed, walking into the room.

  “Good evening,” said a voice.

  Shaw turned his gun toward the sound just as Christopher Garnish emerged from a dark corner of the office. He was armed too, but his pistol was pointed straight at Adele. It was the gun he’d ripped away from Miriam.

  “Whatever shall we do, Detective?” said the criminal, his tone almost conciliatory. “Want to see who’s faster?”

  Eric wasn’t going to be intimidated by this man. “It’s over. Reinforcements are already on their way,” he said, taking a couple of cautious steps forward.

  By way of an answer, Garnish stepped next to the seated woman and put the barrel of his gun to her temple. “Reinforcements?” He laughed. “Like her?” He nodded to Eric’s right.

  Miriam stepped in through another doorway. “Throw down your weapon!”

  “Throw down yours!” said Lorna Dillon from behind Miriam, pointing her own pistol at the back of Miriam’s head.

  Miriam’s face hardened, but she dropped her weapon, letting it slide off her index finger and clatter to the floor, raising up a small puff of dust. The detective slowly raised both hands in the air.

  Lorna shoved her forward toward the center of the room, then kicked her pistol away.

  Eric’s heart rate spiked. He had to figure out a way to get them out of this situation. He was still holding his gun, but the two criminals were threatening both Miriam and Adele. Adele had started breathing heavily, the same way she had that morning when she saw Daniel’s body.

  Miriam, on the other hand, was as immobile as a wax statue. She wasn’t showing even the faintest glimpse of the anxiety she’d displayed in his apartment. Her eyes were fixed on his, concentrated and calm . . . too calm.

  “Fuck you!” shouted Miriam suddenly. Her elbow went flying backward, catching Lorna in the ribs and driving her aim off. Miriam spun around in the same movement, grabbing the woman’s right wrist and raising it up in the air. Lorna was driven into the wall, her back smacking into the cement with a dull thud.

  Garnish raised his gun and shot.

  “No!” shouted Eric, while Miriam buckled under the blow.

  Miriam loosened her grip on Christopher’s companion and fell to the floor.

  At that point, Shaw stopped thinking entirely. He aimed at Garnish and fired. Once, then again, hitting the man both times as Lorna began screaming.

  The world seemed to have slipped into slow motion. He saw Adele throw herself to the floor and grab Miriam’s gun. Lying down, she rolled over, aimed at Dillon, and shot the woman in the head.

  A look of utter stupor came over Dillon’s face as a gush of blood shot out of a hole in her forehead. Then her body collapsed and slid down the wall alongside Miriam.

  A second later the silence was absolute.

  Still incredulous, Eric looked around the room, uncertain whether what he was seeing corresponded to the truth. Then Adele yelled out.

  He looked at her. She was still holding the gun with which she had shot Lorna. E
ric stared into Adele’s eyes, horrified by it all.

  A sudden sense of urgency drew his attention back to Miriam. She was lying on the floor, motionless.

  Eric ran over to her. Her face was covered by her own hair. The bullet wound was in her back, where a large hole had opened up in her leather jacket. He shoved his gun into its holster and touched the wound, then checked his fingers. There was no blood. He reached out again, and only then realized that her back was much more rigid than it should be.

  He delicately rolled her over. Her jacket fell open, revealing the bulletproof vest she’d put on. As soon as he saw it, Eric released an enormous sigh of relief. She’d been much more careful than he had.

  “How is she?” asked Adele from where she lay on the floor, her voice trembling. She’d abandoned the gun on the floor. She kept her eyes on it, but she was curled up, hugging her knees to her chest.

  Shaw touched Miriam’s face and laid two fingers on the side of her neck. Her heartbeat was regular. She had simply lost consciousness from the force of the bullet impact. “Hey, wake up,” he said quietly, shaking her a little, but she didn’t respond.

  A deep groan made him turn around.

  Garnish was supine on the floor, two large red stains spreading out across his shirt. The blood ran out onto the floor, expanding into a puddle. His body was racked with tremors, his eyes wide open. He was moving one arm in their direction.

  This seemed to startle Adele out of her state of shock. “He’s still alive . . . ,” she murmured, scared but moving toward Garnish.

  Eric caressed Miriam’s hair. That man had shot her. He didn’t deserve Eric’s compassion, but deep inside a voice kept telling him he had to do something. Reluctantly he left his “daughter” behind and went over to Garnish.

  Adele was kneeling beside the criminal and opening up his shirt. The man’s eyes searched hers, begging them. His mouth moved, but he didn’t seem capable of producing sound. A bullet wound in the shoulder looked like it wasn’t too bad, but the hole in his stomach was losing a lot of blood. The woman looked up and met Eric’s eyes. “We have to do something to stop the bleeding.”