“Parked across street.”
“Good. This guy is creeping me out”
The plan Nikkie had designed was for Derek to follow the drug dealer—assuming that was what he had chosen for his occupation—after Brenden bought the cocaine and drove Nikkie away from the area. Derek would confront the drug dealer, using necessary force, and find out who the drug dealer was getting his supply of cocaine from. Nikkie would wait for a text message or call from Derek, then would deliver to Brenden the biggest letdown of his life, walk outside and towards the fire station, which was under a half of a mile away from Brenden’s apartment. John Mather would be at the station, just in case Brenden didn’t take the letdown well and tried to use any persuasive force to convince Nikkie to reconsider.
That was the plan.
But Derek knew the plan was a dangerous one and when he saw a flash of brilliant light fill the cabin of the Grand Am, then saw the car’s driver scramble out of the Grand Am, tear open the passenger’s door of the car Nikkie was sitting in, rain down three or four punches directly towards her, then saw the man race around the car, jump into the driver’s seat and tear out of the parking spot and head towards the back of the Right Aid, he knew the plan had fallen apart.
Derek slammed his car into gear, pressed the gas pedal to the floor and headed towards the Rite Aid parking lot. By the time he crossed Main Street and waited for traffic to allow a turn into the parking lot, the dark green Accord, that had Nikkie sitting in the passenger’s seat, was out of sight. Derek sped to the back of the store where the Accord had sped off towards, and looked for an exit road. He saw two roads; one heading west and the other south. Derek turned south and after five minutes realized he had chosen the wrong road.
He pulled out his phone and dialed Nikkie’s number. The voice answering the call was not Nikkie’s.
“You don’t listen, do you, Cole? We told you to stop digging, but here you are, sending your hot little associate to do your dirty work.”
“You so much as lay a finger on her, and I swear to God, I’ll make you regret the day you were born.”
“Very original, Cole. Listen to me and listen closely: You had your chance to back the fuck off, but you didn’t listen. Hell, if you had half a brain in your head, you would have pulled up stakes after your time at the movie.”
“You think I won’t find you? You think I don’t know that you’re working for Louis Randall?”
The man on the phone who was not Nikkie, started laughing. “You have no fucking clue, do you? Louis Randall? You think Louis Randall has the balls to pull off what we’re doing? You should go back to chasing ghosts, Cole, and leave real work to real men.”
“I’m going to turn you into a ghost, you piece of shit.”
“Good luck with that.” There was a short spell of silence before the man spoke again. “I will give you kudos for one thing, Cole. You sure have a tasty looking black bitch for your partner. I’ve been looking forward to spending some quality time with her.”
The call was disconnected,
Derek screamed with rage.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The first call he made was to Investigator Mark Mullins. Derek found it extremely difficult to speak at a tempo and with enough clarity of thought to ensure Mullins understood what had happened.
“Slow down,” Mullins said. “Tell me again, where is the car the suspect drove?”
“The Rite Aid Drug Store. On Main. Son of a bitch must have shot Brenden Lull then jumped in the car with Nikkie and took off.” Derek was a cyclone of emotions. On the outside of the cyclone was intense anger. Anger at himself for not being able to prevent the drug dealer from getting in the car with Nikkie and driving off. Anger that he agreed to Nikkie’s plan, despite knowing the type of degenerates they were dealing with. But most of his anger, the type of anger that burns white hot and leaves nothing but ash in its wake, was targeted at whoever was behind everything. Crown was attacked and though the most recent report from the hospital was encouraging, chances existed that Crown would never be the same. And now, Nikkie was gone; taken by a man who had just shot and killed one man and who Derek strongly suspected was the cinema shooter. What he had said, the murderous bastard, was what created the feelings on the inside of the cyclone.
“You sure have a tasty looking black bitch for your partner. I’ve been looking forward to spending some quality time with her.”
“Why did he say he’s been looking forward to spending quality time with Nikkie?” Derek said to emptiness surrounding him.”It’s like he’s been watching her or knows her. Think, dammit. Did I recognize his voice?”
What had almost happened between the two of them, Nikkie and he, was the culmination of many months of growing attraction. She had become—silently—much more to him that just his partner, his associate. Nikkie had become the promise of hope for Derek. Though no words had ever been exchanged between the two that revealed his feelings, the thoughts and passions had been given life and were the catalyst of words yet spoken.
It was sorrow that the cyclone’s winds swirled angrily around. Sorrow mostly for Nikkie and the fear and feeling of impending doom that she must be feeling. But there was also sorrow for himself. He had watched his wife murdered by a madman and had denied himself to ever allow himself feelings for another woman. But he had seen Lucy’s smile flash in his mind’s eye when he admitted his feelings for Nikkie to himself, and, for what seemed like the briefest of moments, he had removed the self-applied chains holding him down.
As he drove without direction, praying to his distant God to inspire and lead his turns, Derek pushed his sorrow deeper into the concealing winds of the cyclone, calmed himself as best he could, and began planning.
“Cole, listen to me.” Mullins’ voice was streaked with both confidence and understanding. He could sense the fear and anger in Derek’s voice and clearly understood the catalyst behind those emotions. And, he also sensed in Derek’s timbre and tone, a deeper emotion which was driving Derek. “We’ll have a squad car on-scene in two minutes and we’ll find out who the driver is. You need to stop driving around town, trying to find them. You finding them would be the worst thing that could happen.”
“What the hell do you suggest I do?” Derek snapped. “Grab a cheeseburger and a beer at Route 69 and sit back and see what happens?”
“While I highly doubt you’d do that, it would be better than driving around, searching for Nikkie. If you find them, she won’t be alone. And we already know what this bastard is capable of. He won’t hesitate to take you out and Nikkie as well to cover his ass. Stand down, Cole. I can’t give you an order but I sure as shit can issue you a directive. Stand down.”
It took Derek several more minutes of random driving before he pulled his car over to the side of the road. He slammed the gear shifter into park and sat and stared into the growing darkness of the night.
His state of emotional paralysis was broken by Ralph Fox’s call.
“How’s my freelancing friend doing tonight?” Ralph said when Derek answered his call.
The damn holding back his emotions, which was more than just a tad bit compromised, crumbled behind the mounting pressures. Derek explained everything that had happened to him since he arrived in Ravenswood, finishing with an odd feeling, yet undeniably accurate admission, “Goddamn, Ralph, I can’t let anything happen to Nikkie.”
Ralph knew what Derek had done a few months after Lucy was murdered. He knew Derek stuck a pistol into his mouth, pulled the trigger, and if not for a quick turn of his head a split second before he had applied enough force onto the Glock’s trigger, that Derek would have never become a freelance detective and would not be involved in the case that was now ripping him apart emotionally. “First off,” Ralph said, in a voice more compassionate that either he or Derek believed he possessed, “you’re too damn good of a detective to allow anything to happen to your partner. Secondly, you’re also too strong a person, despite your history, to ever give up on Nikkie
or yourself. You need to think this thing through. You have a talent, Derek, an annoying talent but a talent nonetheless. I guarantee you already know where that son of a bitch brought Nikkie. You just need to let that talent out from behind all those other emotions keeping it hidden. Tell me, right now, where’s Nikkie being brung to?”
“The compounding lab,” Derek said, surprising himself and knowing, somehow, the his senses were right.
“Let me tell you what this old, broken down, left for dead on the side of the road, retired cop found out about that compounding lab before you go running into trouble you can’t run back out of. First off, the place is owned by Leonard La Salle. The guy is apparently a genius, in a whole mess of different ways. Got his degree in pharmaceuticals in 2002, PhD in chemistry in 2005 and, for shits and giggles, got himself another PhD in psychology in 2008. He opened his pharmaceutical compounding lab back in 2003 and, according to the records this old sheriff was able to get his hands on, struggled mightily for a mess of years. Fact is, La Salle had filed chapter eleven or thirteen or some damn number, twice. Once in 2005 and again in 2014. But something happened in 2015 that seemed to turn his fortunes around. And, whatever it was his fairy godmother delivered to him, was damn profitable.
“Now, I ain’t saying what turned his business around was illegal. I ain’t saying that at all. But, whatever it was, sure did get a lot of people in Albany damn curious. Now, I am hearing what I believe to be road noise from your end of the phone, so I take it you got back to driving that car of yours.”
“I’m driving to the compounding lab,” Derek said, his voice fixed and stern.
“While I do not suggest you complete that drive, I know you well enough by now to know that me trying to convince you to take an alternate approach to your case would be futile. So, as long as you can drive and listen at the same time, I’ll keep talking. You can do both things at the same time, can’t you Derek?”
“I can.”
“Figured you could,” Ralph said. “Your old buddy Louis Randall. You do remember him, don’t you?”
“How could I forget? You’re going tell me he’s wrapped up with La Salle somehow, right?”
“Not exactly. See, Leonard La Salle’s sudden fortune, like I already said, got a mess of people interested in his doings. But, his answer to those mess of Albany people’s questions was that he had investors pouring money into his business. And you know who might have been the largest of those investors?”
“Louis Randall.”
“Old Louis invested over seven million dollars into the plant back in 2014. His money, along with roughly another two million from a bunch of other investors, turned La Salle Compounding Facility into a cash rich operation.”
Derek had only driven through the town of Ravenswood one time. Though he had an amazing ability to map out a city and its landmark buildings quickly, he found himself lost, taking random turns, then having to correct his course. He remembered faintly seeing signs for La Salle Compounding Facility and believed he had seen them near the Town’s public park and golf course. Derek continued driving randomly until he saw a sign, reading “Golf Course-3 Miles Ahead.” An arrow was emblazoned beneath words, pointing left.
“So, if the compounding lab is up to something no good, Randall has a financial interest in keeping things quiet,” Derek said as he negotiated the left hand turn and increased his pressure on the gas pedal.
“I’d have to say he would,” Ralph bellowed.
“If La Salle got people with deep pockets to invest in his business, doesn’t that explain why his business turned around in 2015?”
“Now, that would be a fair and fine assumption, Derek, but it would also be a wrong assumption. See, those deep pockets poured in a whole lot of money but not nearly enough to explain how La Salle was able to pay off a twenty-two million dollar note he took out in 2010 on an expansion project, nor would those pockets explain how he was able to invest another five million in renovations and the building of four new buildings. La Salle sure did get a lot of cash from investors, but the books don’t balance.”
“Maybe he expanded into a new line of business?” The next road sign Derek paid attention to read, “Ravenswood Municipal G.C. 2 Miles.”
“That seems likely to me,” Ralph said. “But old Ralphy found out some peculiar information about Leonard La Salle. Way back when, in 1993, a young girl by the name of Rebecca Angela Miller was kidnapped, raped and killed. She was from Middletown, New York and that was the last place she was seen alive. Her body was found in the woods near the golf course in that very same town you’ve been in the last couple of days. Want to take a shot in the dark who found that girl?”
“La Salle?”
“And from what I heard, local authorities were interested in La Salle’s daddy for the murder. Seems he was in Middletown the day the little girl went missing. They never were able to pin the murder on him but there sure were a lot of cops who would swear on a tower of bible’s that Leonard La Salle’s daddy did the deed.”
“Sounds like Leonard had a troubled upbringing.”
“Now here’s what got those cops back in 1993 curious about La Salle’s daddy. They had run a whole mess of interviews with practically everyone in Ravenswood, including Leonard. Since he found the body, it would make sense for the police to interview him. But during the one interview he had with the cops, Leonard La Salle told the cops that he thought he recognized the girl he found dead in the woods. Like he’d seen her somewhere before but couldn’t remember where or when. Now, I certainly wasn’t a part of that investigation, but I’d find it peculiar that he believed he recognized the poor little girl.”
Derek wasn’t sure which he saw first: The sign indicating that the municipal golf course was five hundred feet ahead, or the smoke billowing up from the ground into the sky a half of a mile ahead of him. “Ralph, there’s something on fire ahead of me. I have to go.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The main building of La Salle Compounding Facility was a two-story, eight thousand square-foot facility that seemed to be under continual improvements. Its blackened windows, clean architectural lines and pristinely kept grounds exuded an air of success. Of progressiveness. Of certainty. Behind the main building, enclosed in the six-foot-high, steel chain-link security fence, were three outbuildings. The one closest to the main building was a simple, one-story, eleven-hundred square-foot structure, that housed the groundskeeping equipment, storage for seldom used or out of date lab equipment, a generator which was capable of running the entire lab for three days in case of an emergency and three black Town Cars. Set further behind the main building were two single-story homes that were used to house visiting guests and also served alternate purposes.
After La Salle Compounding Facility was in the black and actually seeing an abundance of cash, TJ Harris convinced his partner and founder of the company, Leonard La Salle, to build the quaint homes on the facility’s premises.
“If we want to make an impression on people, we need to go all out. We need to show investors what a real, legitimate operation we are running here,” TJ had said.
“Legitimate operation?” Leonard questioned. “Under your leadership, you’ve turned my company into a drug dealing menace of society.”
“One that brings in more money each month than what the business under your leadership did in any year since you opened. Leo, you have to know by now that without what I’ve done for this business, you’d be dead-ass broke. You wouldn’t be enjoying that mansion you call home and you sure as shit wouldn’t have the time or resources to do whatever the hell you do in your private lab.”
“But if this ever blows up,” Leonard replied, “if you make one mistake, everything will come crumbling down.”
“Unlike you, Leo, I’m willing and able to do whatever it takes to make sure that never happens.”
When TJ Harris arrived at the facility—an unusual visit for him considering it was the weekend—his agenda consisted of three importa
nt action items: Get rid of the “residents” staying in one of the more secure out-buildings; make sure that the dearly departed Gene Witten had cleaned up and removed every last trace of Leonard’s magical formula from the secured lab on the second story of the main building; and call two of the investors in the La Salle Compounding Facility. He needed to remind them that, though they may not have played a role in the business expansion plan he himself had designed and was fully in charge of, they continued to be at risk of losing all of their investment as well as potentially having serious legal concerns if things were allowed to go sideways.
But before TJ could unlock the front door using the combination of his proximity badge and his fingerprint read on the biometric scanner, he saw a car racing past the entrance gate, tearing down the manicured driveway, then behind the maintenance building where it slammed to a sudden stop.
“Son of a bitch,” TJ said as he broke towards the car. Though he didn’t recognize the car, he knew who would be behind the wheel and he suspected the driver wouldn’t be alone.
ˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇ
“What the hell are you doing here?” TJ grumbled as the driver climbed out of the car. “And who the hell is that?” he said, pointing to the woman sitting in the passenger’s seat, a trickle of blood dripping from what was certainly a fresh welt on the side of her head.
“We ran into a situation,” the driver said. “And I took the necessary steps to clean it up. Now, either you’re going to help me or you’re going to get the fuck out of my way.”
“Who is that? Tell me, who is that girl?” TJ was angry, not at his associate taking the steps he felt were needed, but at how quickly things were unravelling. Whatever needed to be done to keep things quiet and to make his mistake of replicating La Salle’s combination of cocaine with the devil’s snare weed go away, needed to be done immediately.
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