Thrills

by K. T. Tomb

  “The public prosecutor was quoted today as saying, ‘It was him’. Those were the words that the Assistant District Attorney chose to use this morning in his opening address to the jurors here in John Bainbridge’s trial.

  “He went on to state that Bainbridge is indeed responsible for the fatal robbery of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York City. He did incite an incident that resulted in the deaths of at least thirty people and the injury of countless others. He was there when a police officer was killed. He was then later involved in a shootout with police.”

  “'The accused robber will not be allowed to sidestep any of his actions during the course of this trial because we know what he did,' the ADA said.”

  “So my question is, Silvia, why even a trial at all? According to inside sources, that’s because there’s disagreement over why Bainbridge did it.”

  “Today, being the first day of the trial, we’ve seen that the information provided jurors with a peek at the strategies of the prosecution and defense. Based on his opening statements, it seems that the prosecution and investigating entities agree on the basic facts around the heist. As in, who carried them out and how. It seems that there are very divergent views of why Bainbridge carried out the robbery. And even whether or not he was acting on his own accord.”

  “In his initial statement to jurors, the ADA strongly argued that Bainbridge’s main goal was to kill as many people as possible. The prosecutor described in detail the deaths of three victims near the Federal Reserve building in New York and painted a picture of Bainbridge as a heartless criminal completely committed to greed and mayhem.”

  “But the question that remains on everybody’s mind is: Was the gold and silver that was taken from the bank recovered? And if not, where is it?”

  “In the meantime, we have yet to hear a presentation from the defense on the matter and we’ll be back to bring you up to speed on those proceedings as soon as they come to a close.”

  “Back to you, Silvia.”

  Storm rolled his eyes and took a deep breath in preparation to battle the mob in front of the courtroom doors again. Silently, he hoped that the crowd would be brought under control soon. He could already envision the kinds of security breaches that could happen from the disorder. Sighing, he was suddenly relieved that his client was presently nowhere to be found.

  When Storm got back, he looked over his notes one more time and waited for the judge to open the session again and call him before the jury. He rose to his feet and went to the jury bench to start his speech. But before he could start speaking, the bailiff handed a note to the judge. The judge read it and held up his hand, stopping Storm from speaking. “Please approach the bench Mr. McCoy, Mr. Smith.”

  Storm walked to the bench and looked behind him, seeing prosecutor Smith get up and approach as well.

  “It seems we finally know why the accused is not present,” the judge said.

  Storm frowned. The judge handed him the note. It said that John Bainbridge had been beaten up in prison. He had been hurt severely and was fighting for his life in the prison hospital while awaiting the next transfer to County General.

  Chapter Eleven

  Storm’s Buick flew down the road towards the prison.

  Night was falling and a storm was closing in again. It closed on him moments before he reached the prison and in the pouring rain, he entered the building. He was soaking wet by the time he was let in. Lightning flashed above his head and he looked up as the thunder rolled past.

  It took an hour before he was let into the sick bay to see his client, and by then the doctor was coming out with a grim look on his face. As Storm looked up at him, the doctor shook his head. “He’s never going to come to again. Brain dead.”

  Storm swore and went in.

  John Bainbridge’s still body laid in the bed. He could barely recognize him. His face was gone. There were bruises and wounds everywhere. There were pits and lumps everywhere on his head, suggesting his skull had been beaten in at various places. And thoroughly, too.

  The doctor had hooked him up to a life support system; it seemed John was not only brain dead, but his heart had also suffered severe damage.

  He was a mess, but what Storm did recognize was the double scar on John’s throat. There was the scar tissue from the gunshot wound and then the scar from the surgeon’s knife.

  Lightning flashed outside, highlighting the scar. Storm figured at least this man was the real John Bainbridge. He sank down into the chair beside the bed and closed his eyes. A thought struck him then. He shot up and looked around, suddenly feeling slightly paranoid. He had a feeling he was being watched and of course he knew exactly who it was. “Come on out where I can see you. I know you’re there.”

  A side door opened and a man stepped through. It was one of the two guards who had been present the first time he’d visited Bainbridge. But the guard was not wearing a uniform now. He wore an expensive tailored suit and without the cap on his head and signature law enforcement dark glasses; Storm recognized him. Seeing him standing there, Storm knew all his suspicions had been well founded and his heart beat a little faster with that realization. He ran his hand through his hair.

  “Mr. Hugh Rothschild,” Storm smiled at him. “Didn’t recognize you in that uniform of yours before. When did we last meet properly? High school?”

  Rothschild smiled. “Something like that.”

  “Still working as an enforcer for the family I assume?”

  Rothschild didn’t say a thing.

  Like Storm McCoy, Hugh Rothschild was from an old family. His was a family that moved to New Holland, but had been related to a very prominent family that rose to power in Europe close to a century after his branch of the family moved. When they established their banking in New York, they reconnected and the Rothschild family became an integral part of the behind the scenes running of New York’s banking. Hugh Rothschild had been involved in that system since he was young.

  “Well, that solves one riddle.” Storm had done the math in the minutes before Rothschild arrived. John had been prevented from getting to the court and beaten up after that. There was no other explanation. He smiled as he told Rothschild about it. “I suppose you took out Ben Jones too?”

  Hugh Rothschild just smiled. “And now that I know you’ve finally put two and two together, you do realize I can’t let you live, right?”

  Storm produced his biggest smile, looking like the Cheshire Cat as he spoke. “See, I doubt you will do that, Hugh. You see, there’s still one tiny missing piece of the puzzle and it would just be sad to see such a simple thing unravel all this elaborate plotting and scheming. Not that it would make it any less hilarious... but still.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Storm? What do you think you have on me... or on any of us for that matter?”

  “I have Ben Jones’s diary. Or rather, someone very close to me has it and is ready to give it to the police if something unfortunate were to happen to me.”

  Rothschild stopped smiling then, but said, “You’re bluffing. There is no diary.”

  Storm was bluffing, but he knew he had Rothschild then. “Oh, trust me. There is. You didn’t check the box in his room, did you? From what I’ve read, it seems he described you to a tee. He’d seen you at the Liberty Street Building with a remote control in your hands. Clear as day.”

  Rothschild’s face was expressionless and it was that which told Storm he had won. He knew it, and he knew Rothschild was defeated, too.

  Rothschild nodded to the mass of mangled flesh in the bed that was once a man and smiled like a brute. “In any case, I don’t think there is going to be trial.”

  “Guess not,” Storm replied. “So why don’t you call off your dogs considering I have that diary and will have you locked up the moment I hand it over.”

  “I don't know about all that, Storm. Loose ends and all...”

  “Is that your final answer?”

  The attorney didn’t even wait for an answer,
just walked past him towards the far wall of the room and flipped a light switch. The bright fluorescent bulb illuminated the wall, the glass window and everyone who was standing behind it watching and listening to everything that had transpired.

  “You fucking snake!” Rothschild yelled lunging at Storm.

  In an instant, three police officers rushed into the room and restrained the killer. Storm smiled at the flailing man and sat down in a chair beside his unconscious client’s bed.

  “You’ve gotten a big head over the years, Hugh and that cocksureness has made you sloppy. I spotted you in the control booth that day when I first visited John. That was a huge mistake on your part but you never were one for staying in the shadows, were you? I was already on high alert concerning this case. You should have known I’d smelt the stench of bullshit the minute you found out I was defending him. Why the hell else would I have taken the case? The biggest mistake was putting that tail on me the next day. You knew you’d messed up by letting me catch that tiny glimpse of you but you didn’t count on me spotting the guy and then having the good sense to bolt for the safety of Severn.”

  “You’re going to pay for this you motherfu...”

  “No, I won't, Hugh. You and I both know at this point you might as well have been an orphan. No one is sticking their neck out for you after all this. You’re taking the fall for this all on your own. This wasn’t hard to arrange once I’d confirmed that it was you I’d seen that day. All we had to do was sit back and wait for you to make your next move. I just didn’t count on John taking this kind of damage for it.”

  Storm became silent and rested a hand on the arm of the unconscious man lying still on the bed. Suddenly a voice came from behind the two-way mirror. “Take that scumbag away.”

  Storm watched as the officers dragged Hugh kicking and screaming from the room, no doubt to lock him in the darkest cell they could find. Then he left the room, walked down the stairs and checked himself out of the prison.

  He paused and stood in the gateway for a moment, staring out at the driving rain. He ran his hand through his hair, then darted to his car. He started the engine and roared out onto the road, through the town with the knowledge that he had finally gotten to the bottom of everything that was going on and especially what had happened that night in Washington. As he navigated the winding woodland roads that led the way back to Richmond, Virginia and ultimately home, to New York, he glimpsed in the rear view and laughed dryly when he found nothing there. He looked ahead.

  The roads were slippery but Donovon had braved worse; he was more than a little capable of handling driving in inclement weather. Soon the bright lights of Virginia came into view and with a fresh conviction, he drove deeper into the stormy night.

  The End

  Return to the Table of Contents

  THE QUEEN’S

  VAMPIRE

  A novel by

  K.T. TOMB

  The Queen’s Vampire

  Published by K.T. Tomb

  Copyright © 2018 by K.T. Tomb

  All rights reserved.

  The Queen’s Vampire

  Chapter One

  The throbbing in her head and the lurching in her stomach hit her before Nora even opened her eyes. In truth, she wasn’t thrilled about opening her eyes at all. She opened one of them, felt the wave of pain roll back through her skull, felt her stomach proclaim its protest and closed it again.

  If I lie very still, it will all go away.

  She listened for sounds of Kate or Mary stirring in the kitchen but heard nothing of the sort. Instead, she heard the rhythmic ticking of a parlor clock pendulum, and the sound of a deep, painful groan. It was so close to her, that, for a moment, she thought maybe it was her own expression of agony. It took a moment for consciousness to break through, and she slowly moved her hand, patting smooth, nude flesh and then coming in contact with the unmistakable swelling of a breast.

  That’s not mine.

  The sudden realization caused her to sit up. Her eyes snapped open and she looked at the nude body of a strange woman who, by her appearance, was struggling with the same problem as Nora. Her stomach protested immediately. She rushed to the brass chamber pot placed near the opium bed and emptied what little was in her stomach, groaning loudly as her entrails seemingly tried to exit through her open mouth. When finished, she used the silk cloth to wipe her lips and chin.

  Nora had little time to recover before the nude woman she’d been lying with rushed to the same chamber pot, pushing her out of the way in the process. Nora drew back and let her eyes scan the room, which was lined with tapestries and furnished with opium beds similar to the one she’d just left. There were other women–and men–in various states of dress and undress, beginning to stir throughout the room. Full recognition of the revelry they must have enjoyed the night before was shrouded in a mist. At least, for Nora.

  The chiming of the parlor clock is what finally penetrated through her own fog and jarred her into full consciousness. She counted the number of times the clock sounded, not wanting to turn her throbbing skull to look at the actual position of the hands.

  It was ten in the morning. Ten!

  “No,” she murmured. These days, Nora did all she could to avoid the painful sun. Something was wrong with her, she knew, but it was something she couldn’t explain, and she dealt with it the only way she knew how... by avoiding the sun altogether.

  Except when she slept in opium dens. She would have kicked herself if she could. Maybe later. For now, she needed to get home and out of the sun, and not necessarily in that order.

  She scrambled to gather the clothing she could find, rushing to put enough of it on to cover herself. She shoved her slippers on and, clutching her delicates, passed through the heavy curtain of the room. As she hurried down the hallway, she tried to straighten the tangled mess that was her long, curly red hair, but abandoned the idea the closer she got to the door... and the bright glow of daylight.

  She knew the sharp glare of sunlight was going to hurt. Bad. Indeed, this hadn’t been the first time Nora Kelly had awakened in the opium den instead of her own room in the flat she shared with Kate Bradbury and Mary Winston in London’s East End. The three weren’t friends in the truest sense of the word. In reality, they were three women who had allied themselves for the purpose of survival. They were drawn together by a common vocation; the oldest one in history.

  For all of her strength, Nora had one debilitating weakness: opium. She could hardly pass by the opium house on the corner of Ming and Saltwell streets in the Limehouse District and hold onto the money she’d brought in from the sailors and other seekers of pleasure before a craving led her through the doors... and the soothing escape that the mist of the black seeds brought her.

  Now, she could feel the sun’s heat bearing down on her as she scurried along Saltwell Street toward the three-story townhouse which had been broken up into six dumps that resembled apartments. The three young women were actually lucky to have had such a place to lay their heads as well as ply their craft, but it was still a far cry from the barest of luxuries.

  Nora could feel the burning of the sun’s rays on her exposed skin and tried to cover herself up. The blister-like rash on the back of her hands was already beginning and she knew that her face would have the same rash; a recent condition which caused her to miss work and cut into her profits. The way she felt in that moment, working tonight didn’t appeal to her anyway; indeed, she felt like hell.

  She was halfway between Emma’s Emporium and her flat when her stomach demanded her attention again. Not caring that the sparse number of people on the street might see her, Nora emptied a tiny bit of the lingering poison into the gutter—and continued to heave without bringing up anything more than a foul taste.

  Pulling herself together again, Nora covered her exposed skin, clutched the garments in her hands, and started on again. She had taken fewer than a dozen steps when she heard the rhythmic beat of hooves on the cobblestone catch up to her,
pass her, and then stop. She tried not to look up at the passing carriage, but could hardly help herself when a voice from within called out to her.

  “Miss,” the voice called out. “Might I give you a ride to your destination?”

  Out of habit—and necessity and safety—Nora’s furtive eyes took in the carriage instantly. It was well cared for. Clean and freshly painted and polished, but was also embellished with silver and brass so that the sun glinted off of it and hurt her eyes. It wasn’t the sort of rig you often saw in the Limehouse District. The handsome pair of black horses pulling the carriage were leggy, held their heads high and pranced impatiently when the carriage had come to a stop.

  Assuming that the speaker was probably looking to be entertained by her, she turned him down, directing the best smile she could muster in his direction and shading her eyes against the sun. “I’m not working today. I’m sorry, mister.”

  “I’m not soliciting your services,” he chuckled. “I’m just concerned for your well-being under this scorching sun.”

  “I’ve only a few blocks to go,” she responded. She remembered her manners. “Thank you for your concern.”

  “I insist that you join me. Even in those few blocks, you’ll wreak disaster on your delicate skin.”

  He was right, of course, but she wasn’t used to being helped out in such a way. Since she’d arrived in London—and even before that—she’d taken care of herself. Indeed, she hadn’t relied on anyone to help her and she didn’t intend to start now.

  “Please,” she returned. “Our talking is doing more damage than if I had been left to make the journey without stopping.”

  “I insist,” he returned, hopping down from the carriage, extending a hand to her and guiding her toward the narrow step. “I could never forgive myself if I didn’t lend a hand to one in such great need.”

  Nora didn’t feel like fighting and she could not ignore his insistence. She stepped up into the carriage and out from under the blazing sun.