by Rick Murcer
“Did he know this guy?” she asked.
“Good, gringa. You could be right or Oscar was being a good doobie. Keep watching.”
In the next five seconds, the mysterious man pulled something out of his pocket, and she saw a flash. She jumped, and then felt her insides turn to lead as she saw two more flashes.
“He killed him in cold blood. My God, he just shot him,” said Ellen.
“I guess we knew that. Made me sick the first time I saw it, but ya gotta keep watching.”
“Okay.”
In the upper-left-hand corner of the video she saw the green aura from the traffic light turn yellow, then red. In the time it took for that to happen she watched Oscar’s killer reach in, spend a few moments with both hands inside the window, and then step back.
“That’s all the time it took to mutilate Oscar’s chest?” Ellen asked.
Sanchez sighed. “I guess so. I can’t tell what he used, but it must have been sharp. I’m just not sure why he did it.”
“Maybe it was to make it look like something it wasn’t,” said Ellen.
“Good guess. You might make a good cop yet. Anyway, keep watching.”
The killer had grabbed the keys. He then moved to the back of the SUV and opened the door, but that was all they could see. The feed was blocked by the door itself.
“Shit,” said Ellen.
“Pay attention,” said Sanchez.
Then something else flashed across the screen.
Another man entered the video. He walked to the back of the truck and joined the first man. They were hidden from the camera, but in less than fifteen seconds they both were walking away from the unit, taking different routes away from the crime scene.
“Two killers?” she asked.
“You saw it, Harper.”
Her voice couldn’t contain her disbelief. “We have two people involved in this? What the hell.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not totally unheard of, but creepy as hell to think about,” said Sanchez.
“And who was he with?” asked Ellen.
Sanchez didn’t say anything; instead she hit a couple of keys on the keyboard. Suddenly the killer’s partner came into view as he passed under the streetlamp at the very edge of the camera’s field.
“I wanted to see what I could on this one. I cleaned up the feed. It looks like he’s carrying some kind of cooler, but from the angle, I’m not totally sure . . . Still, I think I stumbled onto something. See the way he moved his hand and how the streetlight lit that part of the frame? I got a good look at his hand.”
Sanchez did have a good look at his left hand.
“Impressive,” said Ellen.
“We might be able to enhance it to show some type of fingerprint, maybe. Yes?”
Ellen started to answer the detective’s question, but her voice caught in her throat. She scanned the screen again.
The next moment, she thought her mind might explode.
The close-up of the man’s hand showed a ring, and unless she missed her guess, the ring looked eerily similar to the one that she’d seen on the second murder victim’s phone.
CHAPTER 37
After he removed his vest, he took off his jacket and wrapped it around Joannie’s shivering frame, Brice ripped the cell from his pocket and dialed 911. He told the dispatcher to send an ambulance and to notify all units in the area to return to his location.
He hung up, hardly able to get the phone back in his pocket just as she wrapped her arms around him. He knew it wasn’t exactly protocol, but she was cold, and right now, they weren’t cop and victim. She’d need it to be more than that. He pulled her close to him.
Suddenly, as if she’d forgotten where she was, she began to fight, making guttural noises that escalated his appreciation for just what this woman had gone through and broke his heart at the same time.
Her flailing hands caught him square in the nose. His eyes watered to the point where his vision blurred, but he began to speak softly to her, pulling her even tighter.
“I’m a cop, Joannie. I’ve got you now. You’ll be all right. I promise. I’m not leaving you. We’ll wait for the ambulance together, and nothing else is going to happen to you.”
She stared at his face, pointing at her blood-smeared mouth, tears filling her terror-stricken eyes. He could also see her beauty under the dirt and the blood, but more than that, he sensed her resolve and strength through all of her suffering.
“I know, I know. Just hang tight. I’m here for you,” he said.
Slowly, she gave in, and thirty seconds later, she surrendered to his embrace completely, hugging him fiercely as her body shook.
Brice had never been a man of faith. He believed in God, but in his line of work he had seen far too much of what evil had to offer to think that God truly cared about His creation. Who could blame Him? Maybe humans had it coming. Anyone who could do what had been done to this woman had no concept of what God might be.
Still, he found himself wishing that there was a special place in Hell for people who perpetrated atrocities such as this. A Hell that transformed the predators into their victims and turned their crimes against them for eternity. An appropriate punishment in his eyes. He suspected he wasn’t alone in that way of thinking. One could hope.
Perhaps it was a good thing he didn’t have the final say in such matters. Compassion wasn’t exactly foremost in his mind at the moment.
She moved closer, if that were possible, and her sobbing began to tail off as he continued to speak to her. He stroked her arm, hoping that she’d make a full recovery in every way.
Brice wanted to ask her where she’d come from, to point to the building at least. Who had done this to her? But could she handle it? He didn’t think so. Her attacker was a coward. He had to be to do this, so they weren’t in any danger. This piece of shit wouldn’t attack a cop. Brice decided he’d wait for the ambulance and the rest of the CPD to show before they went after the killer. Right now, she needed him, and holding a woman in his arms hadn’t happened in a long while. It felt good.
Brice let down his guard even more. His stoic, antiseptic persona, at least for now, was a distant reality. He didn’t give a shit about any of that. He just wanted to give her what she needed. That hadn’t always happened for the people in his life. Had it?
The flashback was too sudden and intense to ignore or push out of his thoughts, like he’d become so accustomed to doing over the last six years. Her face might as well have been inches from his. Her breath as sweet as ever, her eyes so green he thought he might be getting lost in them again. Her voice as soft as a spring breeze, telling him it wasn’t his fault. To forgive himself. To move on. He wanted to reach for her, to hold her, to protect her like he was protecting Joannie. His dead wife smiled, and then she was gone.
He stopped speaking to Joannie and stared at the fading sunlight reflecting off the worn, red-brick building in front of him. Of course that’s what she’d say. That’s what people who love you do. They try to ease your pain and ignore your mistakes. But none of that changed the facts. If only he’d been there . . .
The siren echoing in the distance brought him back to the present and told him that help was on the way. He’d wallow in self-pity later.
Joannie had a curious look on her face. Her hand slowly reached up and touched his cheek.
“Don’t worry, I’m still here. Just checked out for a moment. You okay?”
It took her a few seconds, but she finally buried her face in his chest and wrapped both of her hands around him again.
Maybe Hell was too good for assholes who did things like this.
“How sweet. I didn’t know cops could be so warm and compassionate.”
Brice turned to look over his shoulder and came nose-to-nose with the barrel of a Smith & Wesson revolver.
He followed the gu
n to the hand and then to the face of the man holding it. He was tall, good-looking, and all business.
“Who are you and what the hell are you doing?” asked Brice.
“Who I am is not your concern, and as far as what I’m doing, well . . . Anything I want, Officer. Anything I want. Just don’t do anything stupid or heroic and you might make it through this.”
Brice felt Joannie jerk, then tear away from him, struggling to her feet. She took two wobbly strides, went to her knees, got up, and went down again. The man with the gun moved quickly to her and grabbed her by the hair. He leveled the 9-mm back to Brice’s head. Brice could tell by the look on the man’s face that he wasn’t afraid or nervous. Brice held his ground.
“Who said all cops are idiots? Good choice, Detective,” he said, grinning.
He lifted Joannie to her feet. “Tsk, tsk. Joannie, it was rude of you to leave before we had completed our meeting. It wasn’t nice to hit me with your head and run out the door like that.”
She swung at him and landed a pointless blow to his arm. He laughed.
“You do have some of the spirit my misguided brother so admired in you.” The laugh turned to a snarl as he jerked her toward him. “Haven’t you heard that no one gets out alive, no matter how much they want to? It doesn’t work that way.”
The maniac put the gun to her head.
Good God. He was going to kill her.
Redemption. Here was the opportunity to make something right. He considered, momentarily, whether he’d have the strength to act on it.
Only for a moment. Brice then made a choice that really was no choice at all.
Leaping up, he lunged for the killer’s waist. Joannie’s captor released her and turned on him, swinging his gun around at the same time. Brice made contact like a linebacker hitting a running back. As they collided, he reached for the gun, felt the cold steel touch his hand. The euphoria was beyond description, but it lasted only a moment, as the man spun to his right and ripped the gun from Brice’s grasp. Brice dove at him again, reaching for the kidnapper’s arm and swinging his left fist toward his jaw at the same time. It glanced off the killer’s face, not connecting fully. Suddenly, he felt a stinging pain under his left eye as the butt of the gun connected. He saw a galaxy of stars. Still, he rushed the man again, noticing that Joannie was doing her best to get away.
Before Brice could reach him, the man was already propped up on one knee, aiming the revolver at him. The first shot slammed into his shoulder, spinning him around with a sickening thud.
At first he felt nothing, then the pain tore into him. But he couldn’t give up like he had in the past. Not this time.
Taking another step, he moved toward the shooter just as the second bullet struck his head.
Brice Rogers dropped to the cool ground, his thoughts swallowed by the darkness.
CHAPTER 38
“What the hell do you mean he’s not there? He called in a 911 emergency, and four minutes later, he’s gone?”
Big Harv’s face was getting redder by the second. He knew he needed to keep it together, in light of his little episode earlier, but it just wasn’t that easy.
“I don’t care. Find him. Call the FT lab and see if they can get a GPS fix on his phone.”
“Sir, we have his phone. It was lying on the ground near the front of one of the warehouses. And that’s not all. His coat is a few feet away and . . .”
“Spit it out, Lieutenant.”
“Well, there’s blood on it in several different areas.”
“Shit,” he said.
Big Harv liked Brice. The man was a little cold for his taste, but he was a good cop.
“Do what I said, Lieutenant. Find him. I’m sending more people out, including the FBI’s two teams.”
“Yes, sir. We’ll do our best.”
“You’d better do better than that, son. Find him, and I mean now.”
Harv slammed the handset back on the cradle of the new phone and felt it shatter.
What the hell was going on? Brice calls in that he’s found Joannie Carmen alive and needs help in a hurry. A few minutes later they aren’t where they should be, Brice’s phone is on the ground, blood’s on his jacket, and there’s nothing else to go by.
Those circumstances could only mean one thing.
As he took the cell from his desk, it rang.
“Dad?”
He still loved to hear Ellie call him that.
“Yes. I was just going to call you.”
“About what?”
“You first.”
“Well, I just wanted you to know we’ve got some good leads from the evidence and video, and we’re following up on them as we speak. I’ll give you the details at the meeting.”
“Great news.”
“Ahh . . . listen. It looks like there are two killers here, or could be. They might be working in tandem or one’s just helping the other. Either way, this is even more disturbing and complex than we first thought.”
Big Harv felt his chest dance and then go back to normal.
“I’ll give you more details when we meet. Just know that between some of the pictures on the first victim’s phone and Bella’s analysis of the street video, we’re getting closer.”
After exhaling, Big Harv felt his heart flutter again. He set his jaw.
Not now. Just not now.
The troubled ticker seemed to listen and settled down.
“Dad?”
“Just mulling this stuff over. Anything else?”
“Not yet. We’re trying to get phone records expedited. We should have those soon.”
“Sounds like you’ve got the bases covered for now.”
“I do. Hey, have you heard from Brice? Because he hasn’t called yet, but I figured maybe he might have contacted you by now.”
Her tone surprised him. Not Detective Rogers? Instead it was Brice? He couldn’t recall her calling any detectives by their first names. There was more. He’d been around people a long time, and he knew concern when he heard it. His daughter was showing some of that concern. Maybe it was because they were all CPD, but he didn’t think so. This might be a little tougher than he’d originally thought.
Exhaling, he steadied himself. “That’s why I was calling.”
“What does that mean?” asked Ellie.
He relayed the story to her.
Silence.
“Ellie?”
“I’m going down there. They’ll need my help.”
“I need you at this meeting in a few minutes.”
“It’ll have to wait. You know where I’ll be.”
The phone went dead. In a heartbeat, he knew Ellie was right. Meetings could wait. They needed to be at the scene, all of them.
Big Harv made two more calls, took his jacket from the coat-rack, and then headed for his car, praying they’d find Brice . . . alive.
CHAPTER 39
His head felt like it was in a kettledrum. Even through the lessening disorientation, the sound was deafening. Brice wondered if he were in some factory that ran forty-ton metal presses. It took a moment to realize the maddening sound was internal. The battering originated from his beating heart as his pulse vibrated from his spine to his brain.
Each rhythmic explosion caused him to wince with pain as it added to an ever-advancing nausea. The kind that forces one to accept the pure fact that whatever you ate last is going to travel up your gullet then color the front of you.
He fought like hell to control it, but in the end, he was unable to beat it.
It came sooner than Brice had anticipated. With all the strength he could muster, he turned to his left and lost his lunch, barely keeping it off his chest.
Each lurch of his gorge spurred on the pounding pain in his head to a new level of agony.
He’d always thought
that committing suicide while experiencing great pain was just another excuse to check out. But if this pounding continued unchecked, and he didn’t go absolutely mad first, he’d surely consider the possibility of swallowing the barrel of his weapon.
Slowly, as he rested on his side, eyes closed, his senses began to return and the intense flashes of pain subsided.
He opened his eyes and found the fog had almost lifted. He could see that he was in a small room that looked like the interior of many of the warehouses he and his crew had just searched. Mingled with the disgusting smell of his vomit was the stale aroma of dusty wood. But there was something else. Something organic. He’d been down this road before. There was no mistaking the stench of blood.
How in God’s name did I get here?
Then he remembered. He’d been shot. Twice. The second one must have grazed his head. Or else he was in a version of the afterlife he’d never envisioned. He stuck with his first theory, at least for now.
Twisting onto his back, he tried to reach up to touch the side of his head, where the throbbing seemed to begin. Except he couldn’t. Another blaze of pain in his shoulder wouldn’t allow it.
Breathing in a deliberate, purposeful cadence, he began to reach toward his head with the other hand, only it wouldn’t move, either. Glancing over at his hand, he saw the yellow nylon rope looped over and around both hands, then disappearing somewhere below his waist.
“What the hell?” he said out loud.
“Oh. I’m sure Hell has nothing to do with it, Detective Rogers. Unless, of course, one believes such a place exists.”
A moment later, the shooter stood over Brice, straddling his waist, and bending toward his face.
“Feeling better after your little puking episode?” asked his captor, grinning.
Gathering strength he wasn’t aware he had, Brice answered, “Get bent, sick bastard.”
He laughed. “That’s not a good attitude, Officer. You’re not the friendly type, are you? I know you, and I’m ready to agree with those who say you don’t play well with others.”
