No Return

by Nolon King

  She reached Ashley’s door, reached for the knob, and froze.

  Then she collapsed to the hallway floor, sobbing.

  Dodd was in her head, and the monster refused to leave.

  Mal had seen many dark things in her years as a detective, the sort of stuff she didn’t used to think humans were capable of, the things she usually had to bury deep or find herself unable to go on.

  None of that came close to the darkness that swallowed her after losing Ashely, or the hate that boiled for the man responsible.

  Sitting outside Ashley’s room, Mal flashed back to the climax of so many nightmares — when she had a chance to put him down. Jasper offered her the gift of killing Dodd, to get vengeance for Ashley, Jessi, and God only knew how many other girls.

  Mall could have ended him there. But she couldn’t kill a man in cold blood, even a monster like Dodd. But Jasper’s offer rang again in her head, taunting her. Had she listened the first time, Jessi would probably be safe at home.

  Mal screamed and punched. She clawed at the carpet.

  And then she was up, walking to her room, to the nightstand, to her bottle of pills.

  She unscrewed the cap and looked inside. Three left.

  No. You’ve been so good. Do not take them. Don’t —

  Her phone rang. Mike.

  She picked it up, sat on her bed, thankful to hear a friendly voice. She wanted to tell him where she was, that she was considering taking pills.

  But he spoke before she could. “We checked on that name you gave us, Christopher Stanwicz.”

  “And?”

  “Found him in his kitchen, gunshot to the head, suicide note to his ex, saying sorry but he couldn’t live without her.”

  “What the fuck? How long ago did he die?”

  “A couple of days old, judging from the corpse.”

  “Fuck. Any good news?”

  “Nothing. How about you? Jasper give you anything else?”

  “No,” Mal said, slipping into a hopeless void. “We need to find her, Mike—”

  “We will.”

  Mike rarely made such promises. He knew, same as she did, that as each hour faded, so did the odds of finding Jessi alive. Maybe he could sense her desperation.

  A long silence yawned between them. Mal wondered if he knew what she was about to do. Was he trying to decide how best to intervene? Should he be the stern but loving friend or commiserate with a shoulder to cry on?

  Mal hated needing anybody, even more imposing on someone, especially her work partner.

  She opened her mouth, about to tell him she needed him to come over, to help her get through this, but then she heard a clicking followed by a pause. “Gloria’s calling. You okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Talk to you later.”

  Mal hung up, stared at the phone, then thumbed through her contacts. Ray was the only person who might understand what she was going through, but now he was gone.

  So fuck him.

  Mal went up and down the list, her sorrow settling as she saw person after person who had either been a friend she’d lost touch with or strangers who might have been something more had she ever invested the time.

  Her contact list was a front-page reminder of her worth as a human.

  Mal froze on Tim Brentwood, one person she hadn’t burned or ignored. He worked Narcotics in Jacksonville. A one-night-stand who also showed some promise. But she couldn’t call him now, not when she felt this weak.

  Hey, Tim, remember me? Yeah, I’m feeling about as low as you can fucking feel, and I’m really wanting to do some pills, so how about we hook up and you can take my mind off my miserable life?

  She grabbed the bottle and shook it.

  Three pills.

  Just three.

  Three pills never killed anyone, did they?

  Mal raised them to her mouth, popped them in, and just as she was about to swallow, an ugly history rumbled through her mouth. She thought of her daughter, and the deep disappointment that would surely mar her face, if only she could see it.

  She spit out the pills, then went downstairs to the fridge and found a bottle of beer. Mal unscrewed the cap and swallowed, taking the bottle back to her room.

  She fell back on the bed, hoping the booze would serve as a salve to her agony.

  Chapter 17 - Mallory Black

  Mal woke up nauseous, just after seven. She made her way to the bathroom and puked, then took a shower to wake herself and freshen up.

  She considered going to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, to help her fight the urge to use, but the last thing she needed now was some asshole in there shooting video and selling it to some other dickhead in the media. Then she’d never get her job back.

  An awful thought occurred to her. She might have to take a drug test once she returned to work. She couldn’t do pills even if she wanted to. And that, of course, made her crave them even more.

  Fuck!

  She got dressed, went out to her car, and started driving, looking for something to move her mind away from the pain.

  She wound up at Grommet’s Pub, a trendy sports bar on the beach, took a booth in the back, then ordered a burger, fries, and beer.

  She sipped the ice-cold draft, waiting for her food and scoping the place out. It was busy for a Thursday night in August, when most area businesses were still waiting for the snowbirds to come down and pack their places. The crowd skewed older, transplants from New York or California, and too many people who looked like they’d be right at home on the lawn at a Jimmy Buffet show, most of them sitting at the bar watching a game and getting drunk. A few couples and groups were eating dinner in booths, including a few familiar faces, but no one noticed Mal in her cap and ponytail.

  The waitress, an older blonde with sun-speckled skin, brought her food then asked Mal if she wanted anything else. She raised her empty mug. “A few more of these.”

  Mal ate the burger and drank more beer, checking the local news sites. If there had been any updates, Mike would’ve called. But with the Feds in charge, it was impossible to know if something might leak before he had a chance to tell her.

  Mal tapped the Kindle app and started reading a book on grief that she’d bought a few months ago. She read, then drank, and ordered a shot of Jack when the beer kept refusing to buzz.

  She looked up and spotted the fucker who had made her life miserable ever since appearing on her radar promising to fuck with the sheriff’s department: Cameron Ford.

  He was sitting at the other end of the restaurant with an older man in a beige bucket hat and a flannel shirt. Merle Truman, the man who ran Truman’s Fishing and Hunting Superstore. He just so happened to be a close friend of Claude Barry. One of the original good ol’ boys, Merle’s family had lived in Creek County forever, pulling the strings of county commissioners for just as long.

  His power, same as most of the influential west siders, slipped the moment Pine Harbour incorporated in the seventies. The west side was full of white farmers whose families had been here forever. Pine Harbour was a fresh city filled with New Yorkers, South Floridians, and a host of non-natives whom the west-siders resented for innumerable reasons.

  Many west-siders figured that when the next building boom came, they were sitting on prime real estate that would attract factories and retail, but when they couldn’t get their land use changed from agricultural to something better, they lost millions and needed someone to blame. Some of that boiled over into violence against city folks, sometimes with a racist edge.

  Sheriff Barry, a longtime west-sider, ignored much of it during his watch.

  Seeing Cameron hanging around with Barry’s proxy was all the confirmation Mal needed to connect the dots she’d been seeing for a while.

  Mal raised her phone and snapped some photos of them chatting as they ate. Anger brewed as she considered the damage that Cameron had done with his blog posing as legitimate news.

  He’d been responsible for a lynch mob by casting blame on a mentally c
hallenged man in the death of a little girl. Then he got Mal put on leave, unable to work. All in the last month.

  And now he was laughing through dinner.

  The waitress set her shot on the table. Mal thanked her and swallowed.

  She stood, dropped two twenties on the table, grabbed her purse and phone, then went over to Cameron.

  He looked up, his eyes wide.

  Mal grabbed a nearby chair, set it at the end of their booth, flipped it backwards, dropped her purse between her legs and the chair’s back, and straddled the seat. She rested her elbows on the table and smiled. “Hey, guys. How’s it going?”

  They traded confused glances before Merle faked a smile. “Well, hello, Detective, how are you tonight?”

  “Oh, I’m spiffy. And you two?” She ignored Merle, fixing her gaze on Cameron, eyeing her nervously. “You all seen the news? Jessi Price being taken again? And Paul Dodd escaping?”

  “Yeah, that’s a damned shame,” Merle said.

  “And thanks to your boy, here,” she pointed at Cameron, “I can’t work the case.”

  Cameron cleared his throat. “Hey, don’t put your drunken behavior on me. I’m only doing my job. It’s a little thing called integrity, you might try it some time.”

  Mal laughed. “With a hit piece designed to make the sheriff’s office look bad? Yeah, that doesn’t have anything at all to do with your puppet master, does it?”

  Merle’s smile faded and his hard blue eyes settled on her. “Listen here, young lady. Your boss did a fair enough job disgracing her office. But you go on ahead and blame everyone but her and yourself. You Libs are great at that.”

  Mal was squarely in the middle on most things and not about to let this fucker alter her argument.

  She smiled at Merle. “See, the only thing I’m having trouble figuring out is whose hand is up whose ass? Is Berry’s up yours, or is your hand up his? Everyone is up poor Cameron’s, isn’t that right? How does that feel, having Conlan’s pedo hands all up in there, and now these two? All that integrity up in your ass like a fist. You like that Mr. Ford?”

  Cameron’s face was already bright red, his eyes boring into hers.

  She hoped he’d take a swing but doubted he would. He was a big talker on his website or behind a mic but a fucking coward when confronted.

  Merle said, “I see you’ve learned your lesson, of getting drunk in public and assaulting people.”

  “I haven’t assaulted anyone, yet.” She fixed her gaze on him, hoping like hell he’d make a grab for the knife in his pocket or something.

  Cameron had his camera on her. “We’re asking you politely to stop threatening us, Detective Mallory Black. Do we need to call the sheriff’s office?”

  She wanted to wipe the smile from his smarmy face. But his camera was cold water on her boiling rage. She wanted to grab his phone, throw it to the ground, and crush it under her heel, but that would end her career, and the fucking blogger would probably earn her lottery winnings for the trouble.

  “Give my best to your friend, Sheriff Barry.” Mal smiled, stood, then grabbed her bag and phone.

  She went out to her car, got inside, and punched the steering wheel as she screamed.

  Then she realized she wasn’t alone.

  Mal looked in the rearview just as the man in shadows leaned forward and pressed his gun to the back of her head.

  Chapter 18 - Jasper Parish

  “Hands on the wheel, then freeze,” Jasper said.

  She stared at him through tears, her hands gripping the wheel. “What do you want?”

  “Checking in to see if your partner got anything on Cadillac.”

  “Can you put the fucking gun down? I’m having a shit night and don’t need you accidentally shooting me.”

  She was wasted, the stench of alcohol heavy in the car, her speech slurred.

  “Fair enough,” Jasper lowered the gun. “What did you get?”

  “He worked for BlackBriar for a while, but they let him go. The CEO said Cadillac might be working with a guy named Christopher Stanwicz. He ran with a sketchy crowd. Problem is, when we went to go check on the guy, he’d been dead for a few days already.”

  “They’re cleaning their tracks. Who is the CEO? How do you know him?”

  “Victor Forbes. I met him a couple years back.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “More than I trust men sneaking into my car in the middle of the night.”

  Jasper smiled. Mallory reminded him a bit of his daughter.

  “Something else that might be of interest to you,” she said. “The day before Dodd was transferred out, he was sexually assaulted in prison. Anyway, the very next day, a high-profile lawyer swoops in, takes his case, and gets him transferred. Then, poof, Dodd is sprung by some mystery men.”

  “Did your partner or the Feds talk to the lawyer?”

  “Yes, but they got nothing from him. This dude is good.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Why? You going to pay him a visit?”

  “The less you know the better.”

  “I don’t want him showing up dead.”

  “You brought him up for a reason, right? You want me to find out what you couldn’t?”

  “Well, conventional methods aren’t working right now. And,” Mallory started crying again, “I just want Jessi back home with her mom.”

  That wasn’t all she wanted, of course. She also wanted Dodd behind bars, or maybe she’d even come around to wanting him dead. But he didn’t press it. She was in tears, and few things made him feel more helpless than a woman crying.

  “We’re going to find her,” Jasper said.

  “Says the psychic.”

  “Ye of little faith.” He opened the door and started to get out of the car. But then he held out his hand instead. “Give me your keys.”

  “What?”

  “You’re drunk. The last thing you need is a DUI.”

  “So, what, you’re going to take me home?”

  “Why not?”

  She shook her head and handed him her keys. “Fine.”

  He came around to the driver’s side and opened the door, allowing Mallory to get out.

  She froze in front of him, looking him up and down as if thinking maybe she might apprehend her suspect after all.

  Jasper considered warning her, maybe even showing her his gun again, but then she pushed past him, walked around the front of the car, got in like a petulant teenager, then slammed the door.

  “Where am I going? Your hotel or your house?”

  “You been following me?”

  He smiled. “You said you’re having a bad night. What happened?”

  Her arms were crossed. She stared out the window, again reminding him of Jordyn.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Man, you’re a moody ass drunk.”

  She glared at him.

  He smiled wider. “I’m just busting your balls. Seriously, though, what happened?”

  She told him about her run-in with “that asshole, Cameron Ford and his fucking puppeteer, Merle Truman,” and how Cameron’s had a hard-on for her ever since he worked at The Chronicle, where her ex was a photographer. He published photos of Ashley’s corpse on his personal Twitter account and she, or rather Ray, got him fired.

  “He vanished for a while, was working at some rag in Wisconsin. Then he showed up six months ago, just as things were leading up to the election. The fucker was working with Conlan and Barry. They’re trying to make Bell look bad by making me look unstable and getting me put on leave so I can’t do a damned thing to help Jessi.”

  “You want me to take care of him?”

  “I’d love that,” Mallory said, before quickly taking it back, waving her hands to amplify her response. “No, no I do not want you to ‘take care’ of him. I don’t want you ‘taking care’ of anyone! Do you understand me?”

  “I was kidding.” Then Jasper smiled again. “Well, sorta.”

  Mallory s
nickered. “What’s your deal? Why are you doing all of this?”

  “I’m tired of seeing the bad guys win.”

  “So, you’re the judge and jury now?”

  “I am.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “How?”

  “You don’t get to choose who is innocent and guilty. That’s what the legal system is for.” A beat, then, “What if you’re wrong?”

  Jasper glanced at the empty road, then met her eyes. “I’m never wrong.”

  “Hmmph.”

  “I don’t go around randomly killing people. I only target genuine threats. If I knew who Paul Dodd was before he murdered Ashley, I would have killed him.”

  “Don’t bring my daughter into this. She’s not some justification for your sickness.”

  “I’m not sick.”

  “Whatever,” Mallory said, her gaze back out the window.

  “If you knew without a doubt someone was going to kill a child and had done so before, knew his death was the only way you could really stop him, would you do it?”

  “You can’t know.”

  “But if you did?”

  “I’m not playing this game.”

  “Wanna know what I think?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  “I think you damned well would do whatever you could to save an innocent child. Including kill.”

  “I’m an officer, sworn to uphold the law, not take it into my own hands. Enforcing your version of the law undermines the justice system. If everyone did that, we’d have chaos. The law is there to keep civilization from descending into a might-equals-right, dog-eat-dog mess.”

  Jasper nodded. “I can respect that, Detective. For other people. But not me. I’m right. Always.”

  “Lawrence Kampf,” Mallory said after a moment of silence. “That’s Dodd’s new lawyer. But you’d better not harm him.”

  “Thank you.”

  Jasper pulled into her driveway, stopped the car and handed Mallory the keys. “It was nice chatting with you.”

  “How are you going to get back to … well, wherever it is you’re going?”

  “I’ll get a ride. Go get some sleep. And … be careful.”