Shoot to Kill

by James Kipling

  Seeing their way out, they had a new task at hand. Hopefully they would be able to bring this case to an end.

  §

  Nate was slightly awake. They’d stopped giving him morphine due to his body going into respiratory depression. The pain was slightly bearable. He was almost ready to be released from the hospital with a caretaker to watch over him. That was fine with him. The hospital environment was starting to drive him crazy.

  Sitting up slightly, he reached for a glass of water on his nightstand as Owen and Jacob walked in. “Are you two going to be taking me home?” he said, surprised.

  “Yes,” they said simply as Jacob embraced his brother.

  Owen was the last person in the world he thought would be here. A nurse walked into the room and assisted him out of bed into a wheelchair.

  “We’ll take it from here,” said Jacob.

  The nurse walked away shrugging, knowing they were cops.

  “How are you feeling?” Owen asked.

  “Better,” he said brightly. “I get to go home.”

  Jacob put his hand on his brother’s shoulder and they escorted him to their car. On the way, Hazel called.

  “Let me talk to Nate,” she said to Owen.

  “Yeah, sis,” Nate said after Owen handed him the phone.

  “How are you doing?”

  Nate was overjoyed to hear Hazel’s voice. “I am fine. What is going on?”

  “They moved me to Mom and Dad’s house. And oh, by the way, when did you plan on telling me you were going to be a father?”

  “What are you talking about?” he said, confused.

  “Are you saying you didn’t know Arianna is pregnant?”

  There was a brief pause. Everything came crashing down on Nate. How did they know that? “Where is Arianna? Is she okay?”

  “Yes,” said Hazel. “She is somewhere safe. When you get here, I’ll fill you in on the rest of it.”

  “I heard about your accident.”

  “I am doing fine. I love you, Nate, and all three of you, get here safely.”

  Hanging up, he handed the phone back to Owen. Now Owen had to ask, “While you were undercover, did you hear about a woman named Gabriella?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Do the Italians traffic women?”

  “All the time. When I went in, they were moving several around. They abducted them, and a lot of times they set out a ransom. The families would pay it, never realizing their wives and daughters had already been sold and they’d never see them again.”

  Owen and Jacob nodded. That answered that question. Wherever Gabriella was, dead or alive, she was never going to be found.

  §

  Sitting in her patrol car, Braggs was sent to babysit the Hanson residence. She disliked Hazel for the simple fact that she’d taken her man. Owen was supposed to be hers, but men were idiots. She watched as the car pulled up. Nate was being assisted out of the car.

  She got out of her car and walked over towards Owen. She made sure she wore a low cut top to tease him. He eyed her suspiciously.

  “May I talk to you for a moment?”

  He nodded and followed her to her car. “Are you sure you should be here with all of them? Your time would be better spent in the field with me. We are trying to catch The Slitter as it is.”

  “I know,” he said. “I just don’t want to leave Hazel alone.”

  “She isn’t alone,” she snapped. “She is surrounded by her family. Strider is going to be here and I would really appreciate some help.”

  “There are other people you could ask,” he said. “You just don’t want me around Hazel.”

  “That’s because you deserve better.”

  “She’s better than I deserve, Braggs.”

  “Come on,” she said. “You can’t tell me that you didn’t have feelings for me. Don’t you remember what we used to do to each other in the bedroom?”

  “Hard to forget,” he said dryly. “But there’s more to a relationship than sex.”

  “You didn’t seem to mind at the time,” she said.

  “Things change,” he said. “Look, I’m going to stay here. You can go ahead and do whatever you need to.”

  She glowered at him as he walked away. She hated how he could just walk away from her, but he wasn’t the first one to do it and she doubted he’d be the last. Men were dogs as far as she was concerned. Rolling her eyes, she got into the car and waited for Strider.

  §

  Percy was still on the computer looking for anything that would appear useful. Thomas Dunham was not in any system that he could find. Trying his search in a new way, he sifted through the information again until his computer screamed at him. He got a hit on the name and quickly wrote down the information. He walked down to Brooks’ office.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I found some info on Thomas Dunham.”

  Handing him the piece of paper, Brooks nodded. “I know where this place is,” he said. “Two of our victims were murdered in that building.”

  Brooks got on the phone calling out to his unit. They were the best at handling things like this.

  Chapter 16

  Sitting in their overcrowded house, Hazel disliked how loud it was becoming. Her headache was pounding and she felt sick. Owen walked into her bedroom and smiled at her warmly. “How are you doing?”

  “I am probably doing better than Nate is right now. I just can’t stand the noise level.”

  Owen sat down next to her. “I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

  “Of course I forgive you,” she said. “I am the one who pushed you away.”

  Owen’s cell rang.

  “We need you to come in. Strider has been briefed and is your partner on this,” Brooks said. “We have an address and are going to go in now.”

  “I’ll be right there,” he said. He kissed Hazel gently. “Get some rest.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “They have an address. I will call you when I have more information.”

  She grabbed his hand and looked at him intently. “You need to come home safely.”

  “I will, I promise you.”

  She watched as he left and decided to toughen it up and get out of her room. Downstairs, Nate was getting set up in the spare bedroom with Mom fussing over him. Where three fingers used to be, there was now gauze. He looked awful, bruised and swollen, but she was relieved he was home now.

  He smiled as she walked towards him. “You look like you just got hit by a truck,” he commented. Suddenly his words triggered a realization. Thinking back, she remembered seeing a navy blue truck at nearly every place she’d been that day. Sucking in a breath, she moved as quickly as she could to the front door and peered out the side window. Owen was already gone, and she couldn’t see a patrol car anywhere. Something told her the information about the address had come too easily, and perhaps had been intentionally leaked. Feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable, she quickly called Owen’s cell.

  “Hazel?” he sounded surprised. “I just left the house!”

  “I just remembered something. There was always a navy blue truck everywhere I went today, like someone was tracking my whereabouts. Owen I have a really bad feeling about that call that came in. I don’t trust it, or that address.”

  “Hazel, I know you’ve been through a lot, and it’s easy to start jumping at shadows, but this is a good lead and we need to check it out. It’ll be fine, relax.”

  “I can’t relax,” she protested. “Don’t you find it odd how quickly Percy was able to get that information? And now you guys are rushing to that address like one big gift wrapped package. I bet you don’t even have any backup. Owen, you know someone wants you guys gone. This is a trap, I know it!”

  She could sense the gears in Owen’s head had begun to turn, but before he could respond the line went dead. “Dammit!” She stared at her cell but it still showed she had
service so at least it wasn’t someone in the yard with a jammer. Glancing out the window she couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but she knew better than to let her guard down for an instant. Quickly dialing Percy, she was relieved to hear him answer on the second ring. “Percy,” she said urgently, “That address you gave Owen ... I don’t trust it. I want you to keep looking into it.”

  “I will, but I think it’s good. It makes perfect sense, being in the same building as two of the victims.”

  “No,” said Hazel. “This guy isn’t that stupid. He’d never make it that easy to find him. Please, I’m begging you, Percy, dig deeper, and fast.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Hanging up, she ran outside and jumped into Jacob’s car. Before she could get the key in the ignition, Jacob pulled the door open. “Where the hell are you going?”

  “I need to get something at my apartment,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You’re not fine,” he argued. “You’re a mess. And you’re a crappy driver. Move over, I’ll drive.”

  She quickly scooted over to the passenger side as Jacob slid in behind the wheel.

  “What exactly do you need at the apartment?” he asked as he pulled out of the driveway and turned towards the main road.

  “My files,” she said. “The answer to all of this is in one of the files and I’m going to find it.”

  §

  As they came upon the red brick apartment building, Owen’s gut told him Hazel was right. Everything she’d said made perfect sense. “I think she’s right,” he said to Strider. “I think this is one big trap.”

  “Give me a break,” Strider groaned. “She’s tripping from all that’s gone on, family members losing fingers, car wrecks. She can’t think straight anyway and with all this going on, she probably just wants you to stay home with her. She’s feeling needy and clingy is all.”

  “No way, not Hazel. She’s the opposite of clingy. She’s the most independent person I know. Besides, she’d never give me bad information or try to trick me out of doing my job.”

  Wracking his brains, he tried to remember ever seeing a navy blue truck, but came up with nothing.

  Braggs was already waiting by the door with her gun out and ready. The others had arrived and Owen decided to push aside Hazel’s concerns. Clearly everyone else felt good about the tip, and he wasn’t about to be left out of this bust. The unit entered the building fast and quiet, moving up the stairs and down the hall to the unit in near complete silence. Strider gave a nod to the agent closest to the door. The man reached out and turned the door knob carefully, and a sickening click echoed throughout the hall. In that instant, before the blinding flash of light and explosion sent him flying, Owen knew that Hazel’s suspicions had been correct.

  §

  Hazel went to her apartment door quickly and unlocked it. She grabbed the files from the living room table and went into her bedroom to get a few more things. As she turned to leave the room, standing in the doorway and blocking her escape was Raymond Alteri.

  He smiled at her and her body went rigid. “I knew that you would come up here alone.”

  “Aren’t you the clever one,” she said, backing herself into the living room.

  “I am indeed,” he said, moving forward slowly. “More than you realize. I knew on a typical day you would be able to fight me off easily, but after having a terrible car accident? I think not.”

  Hazel reached for her pistol, and came up with nothing. Stupid! She swore silently. Why didn’t I bring it? His hand twitched eagerly and she caught a glimpse of something carefully held between his fingers. It wasn’t a knife, but she doubted it would prove any less harmful to her if she let him get too close. She lunged for the window, hoping to dive through it to the fire escape before he could catch her, but he anticipated her attempt to elude him and was on her in a flash. His powerful hands wrapped around her neck and he flung her like a rag dog into the mirror on the wall, shattering and driving shards of glass into her body.

  Dazed and bleeding, she slumped to the floor. He wasted no time, grabbing her arm and jamming a needle into it. As she watched him depress the plunger and deliver the contents into her system, her body went numb and the world around her faded to black.

  §

  Jacob looked at his watch, wondering what was taking Hazel so long. Finally he got out of the car and walked upstairs. Her door stood wide open. His heart began to pound as he quickly pulled out his gun.

  The living room seemed undisturbed, but as he made his way down the hall towards her bedroom he could smell the faint scent of blood in the air. A quick glance through her bedroom door revealed the shattered mirror and the blood stains in the carpet. The bedroom window was open. He rushed to it and stuck his head outside, but the neighborhood was quiet and unmoving. There was no sign of his sister. She was gone.

  As he raced back out of the building and towards his car, he put a call in to his stepfather’s cell phone. To his surprise, Brooks answered.

  “Where’s the Chief?”

  “I sent him and Percy home.”

  “Hazel was just abducted not five minutes ago from her apartment. They took her out the window and down the fire escape. There was blood all over her bedroom, she’s pretty badly hurt,” Jacob said, choking back fear.

  There was a long pause before Brooks answered. “The Italians have declared war.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The address my unit went to got blown up. I only have one that survived and he’s in critical condition.”

  Jacob felt frustration and hatred sweep over him. This was not happening, not now.

  “Go home, Jacob. There is no way you can find your sister.”

  He heard as the call ended, but refused to believe that this was it. He was not going to give up on Hazel, not after everything that had happened. She said the killer’s info was in a file somewhere. One of her files was the key, and he was going to trust that she was right.

  Switching gears, he raced back into the building and up the stairs to her apartment. The files were still sprawled across her coffee table. At least her abductors didn’t think to take them as well. Grabbing the files, he ran back to his car and headed straight to his parents’ house. He needed more eyes to help him figure this out.

  Chapter 17

  Jacob was dreading having to break the news to his mother, but when he walked into the house and saw her weeping uncontrollably, it was clear she already knew. His stepfather was on the phone but when he saw Jacob he hung up and flung the phone aside. He knew they blamed him for her abduction. He never should have let her go in there alone.

  “What are those for?” her stepfather barked.

  “It’s what Hazel went there to get. She said that the answer to where Alteri is inside one of these files. I need all our eyes on this. I want anything that doesn’t make sense. I do mean anything. A birth date that’s wrong, a name misspelled, I want it all.”

  Everyone grabbed a file and began pouring through it, hoping it would give clues to where Hazel was taken. Suddenly his mother called out, holding up a page and pointing to an address. “I think I got something!”

  Gathering around they all took a look. “I know where that is,” said Percy. “It was an old warehouse that got closed down a few years ago.”

  “I need you to take me there,” Jacob said.

  “We are going to need a lot more than just you and me,” said Percy. “That place is over two hundred and fifty thousand square feet.”

  “Let’s make some phone calls then.”

  §

  Lying in the hospital bed, Owen slowly drifted back to consciousness. He saw Brooks standing over him. “I don’t know how the hell you do it, Jones, but you are a machine.”

  “What happened?” Owen asked weakly. All he remembered was the flash of light.

  “It was a trap. You’re the only one left breathing, and for a while I wasn’t sure ev
en you would make it.”

  “Hazel called to warn me,” he said. “She knew. I…I should have listened to her.”

  “That is something I have to tell you,” Brooks began slowly. “Alteri has Hazel. No one knows where she is.”

  Owen was too badly injured to move, but he struggled to get out of bed anyway. He had to find Hazel. “What the hell happened?”

  “I let her go into her apartment alone,” said Jacob, who had just appeared in the doorway. “She was determined to retrieve her files.” He handed the files over to Brooks. “We found a new address to check out.”

  “I’ll send out a team this instant,” Brooks said, tucking the files under his arm and quickly leaving.

  Owen held a finger up to his lips and whispered to Jacob. “You didn’t give him the real address, did you?”

  “Hell no. I am giving it to you and a few other people I can trust.”

  “Good, then get me out of this bed. I’m going with you.” Every inch of his body screamed in protest as he struggled to pull himself upright. Even with Jacob’s help, he had serious doubts about how long he’d last. Just as they reached the door, a nurse appeared in the doorway, blocking their path. “Are you two insane? He’s in no shape to be going anywhere!” She tried to prevent them from leaving, but was no match for the two determined men.

  “Just send me the bill,” Owen called out weakly as she ran down the hall looking for reinforcements. It took all of his strength to make it out of the building and into Jacob’s car. The instant Jacob shut the door, Owen let out a painful gasp. He’d gritted his teeth all the way outside, determined not to let Hazel’s brother see just how badly he was busted up.

  Jacob jumped in and quickly whipped the car out of the parking lot, ignoring potholes and curbs as Owen clenched his jaw and tried to ignore the pain that shot through him with every bounce. If saving Hazel meant breakneck speeds and a few more bruises, he wasn’t going to be the one to complain.

  §

  Hazel came to with her back to the wall, and her wrists bound tightly above her head. She was in a dark room without any windows, the only source of light radiating from a small lamp sitting off to one side. Her head throbbed and pounded, and her mouth felt dry and cottony. Whatever he’d shot her up with left her feeling like she’d been hit by a truck.