by Lauren Carr
“We’ll be on the lookout,” Hector said.
Archie took the phone from out of her pocket. “Right here.” She held it out to Leah. “I found it on the floor next to the door.”
Leah snatched the phone from Archie’s hand. “I don’t think so.”
“What?” Archie blinked.
“I think you took it.”
“Now wait a minute.” Bogie stood up to his height.
“She’s been snooping on me and Sari ever since we got here.”
“If Archie’s snooping on you, maybe it’s because you need to be snooped on,” Hector replied.
Ignoring the two men challenging her, Leah shook her phone in Archie’s face. “You stay out of my room and my business, or you’re going to find yourself in a lot more serious trouble than you had with Tommy Cruze.”
“You’re a guest in my home,” Archie remind her. “That means I can go anywhere I want, anytime I want.”
“Well, if you want to keep that pretty face of yours pretty,” Leah said in an icy tone, “you’d better think twice before getting in my way.”
“Is that a threat?” Bogie’s hand was on his gun.
“Yes,” Leah answered. “And what are you going to do about it?” She smirked at all of them. “I have the US Marshals watching my back. Because of me, they’ve broken up the biggest and baddest crime organization on the West Coast. Like you and your little play cops with your puppy-dog can even touch me.”
“Both of the assassins this morning had several texts from two cell phone numbers,” Randi Finnegan explained to Mac from her seat in the front of the cruiser. “One of them was a pre-paid phone which has since been shut off. That one had the place and time that Tommy Cruze was going to be at the Dockside Café.”
David was speeding as best he could on the dark, twisting dirt road going up to a remote section of Spencer Mountain. They were away from Deep Creek Lake in an area that Mac had never visited.
On the seat next to him, Gnarly was equally curious with his snout up against the window. Mac wondered how well dogs really see in the dark.
“Our people tracked the GPS for the other number to a cabin on Spencer Mountain,” she said, “They’ve known for quite a while that Bonito owns a hunting cabin up on the mountain.”
“Hunting’s not allowed in Spencer,” David said.
“Bonito doesn’t care about little laws like that,” she said with a smile in her voice before turning serious. “Turn off your lights. They’re going to be surrounding the place to go in when their man gives the signal.”
“By man, I guess you mean the agent that had escaped the café during the poisoning?” Mac asked.
Randi turned back around to face frontwards. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Leaning forward to peer through the windshield to navigate on the dark wooded road, David eased the cruiser onto a side road and through the brush. He parked off the road behind a black van that Mac didn’t see until after the police cruiser had come to a halt.
Agent Delaney appeared none too happy when Randi led them to where he was crouching behind some bushes. On the other side, Mac could make out dim lights in a log home. Even in the dark, he could see by the rustic setting and shabby outdoor furniture surrounding it that the place was several decades old. It did not fit with the modern estate homes located down along the lakeshore and on top of the mountain where treetops were trimmed to afford clear views of the lake and valley below.
With no lake view, this cabin was located and built to not be seen.
In the darkness, Agent Delaney didn’t notice Gnarly until he moved in to sniff the gun he was wearing on his hip. “You brought the dog?”
“He turned out to be pretty handy this morning,” David said.
Recalling that Gnarly had taken out the hit man who had them all pinned that morning, Agent Delaney nodded his head. “Sorry, I forgot.” He turned to Gnarly. “Welcome to the team. Rule One: Don’t get cocky out there.”
Gnarly uttered a noise from deep in his throat and sat down. Eying the agent, he licked his chops.
“Cocky is his middle name,” Mac said.
“What’s going down?” David asked. Noting that a team of agents were moving in on a cabin that was in Spencer, Maryland, his jurisdiction, he added, “and why am I only finding out about this now?”
“Because we didn’t know this was where Ray Bonito was hiding out,” Delaney said. “We thought he had abandoned this place years ago after Cruze was put away.”
“He’s right,” Randi said. “If I knew that Bonito or any of his people were still active in this area, I would never have agreed to locating any of my charges here.”
“This place was burned as a mob safe house back when Cruze was put away,” Delaney said. “I guess after such a long period of no activity, we forgot about it, and Bonito figured it was clean again to bed down.”
“Sounds like you guys need to work on your long term memory,” Mac said.
“You’d be surprised at how long my memory is,” Delaney replied.
“What’s happening now?” David repeated his original question.
“Our hit man—” Delaney began.
“The one who escaped the poisoning at the café,” Mac said.
Delaney cast Mac a dirty glance before continuing, “He started calling back the number that one of the assassins had on his cell phone. He claimed to be TO’d about a hit going down while he was on the premises and demanded restitution for his silence, or he was going to the authorities. It took several calls, but he finally got a text from the number saying to come here to collect.”
Mac shook his head. “I don’t like that idea. Sounds to me like your man is walking into a setup. Why would they pay him?”
“Because the cover on our man is a first-class assassin. Bonito may be a psychopath, but he’s also smart. He’ll want our man working for him. He’ll bring him on board, and we’ll get all that we need to put him out of business.”
“Richardson says he’s a total paranoid,” Mac said. “The only people who have direct contact with him are his most trusted men, which didn’t even include Tommy Cruze. The only reason he’d let your man come out here is—”
The sound of gunfire completed Mac’s statement.
“It’s an ambush! Move it! Move it! Move it!” Delaney called to his men, who were already moving in on the dark cabin.
As the agents moved in, shots were fired at them from the cabin.
Randi was moving in when she saw a dark figure pop up from behind a wood pile. The killer was so close that she could see his laughing eyes trained on her as he aimed his handgun at her. Seeing the barrel of the gun an arm’s length from her face, she froze. Do something! You’re acting like a complete newbie.
The blast deafened her. She waited for the pain that she expected to hit her body before darkness took over.
Blood spilled out of the gunman’s mouth before he collapsed down on top of the wood pile.
The noises around her echoed when she saw David come from behind the wood pile to grab her by the arm. “Don’t just stand there! You need to take cover! Now!”
The rapid fire of a machine gun drove them down behind the water well. She could smell David’s musky scent while he covered her with his body.
The series of gunfire was quickly reduced down to a spattering of shots from here and there as Bonito’s men were quickly eliminated. It was as if they had taken a code. No one was going to be taken alive.
Mac had counted a half-dozen. The count was then reduced to one man. Swinging an Uzi left and right in front of him to clear his path, he raced out the back door.
It was like a re-broadcast of the morning before, this time with a sea of federal agents being held at bay by one man. He had everyone pinned. With their se
mi-automatic handguns, the federal agents were out gunned.
“Any ideas, hot shot?” Delaney asked Mac while they crouched behind a rusted-out truck on blocks.
Before Mac could answer, the gunman rose and drove them all down while he ran towards the trees. Mac dove for the ground and aimed for the running legs. They were quick moving targets, but it was his only shot before they lost the maniac in the deep woods. There was no telling what he would do to innocent local residents in his desperation to escape arrest.
Under the truck, he could hear the pitter-patter of dog paws in the bed of the truck. Gnarly! What’s he up to?
His answer came when he heard the gunman scream. There was a flurry of gunfire. Gnarly yelped. Mac heard a thud.
Silence.
Mac felt his heart in his throat. Crawling out from under the truck, he envisioned finding Gnarly a lifeless, blood-soaked fur bag after trying to take down the gunman.
In the darkness, he saw nothing.
“Where’d they go?” he heard Delaney ask from beside him.
One of the agents said, “I saw the dog jump out of the bed of the truck and tackle the guy, and then they both disappeared.”
“If anything happens to that dog, I’ll be sleeping in the guest room for the rest of my life,” Mac muttered. “Gnarly!” His call was answered by a whimper from out of the darkness. “Anybody got a flashlight?”
Delaney was already shining a pen light in front of him while they made their way through the dark toward the woods where they had last seen the gunman.
“Gnarly!” Mac called again.
The bark and whine came from in front of them. Delaney shone the light down to the ground.
If they had gone only a couple of steps further, they would have fallen into it—the grave—freshly dug for the agent who had pushed Bonito too far. It ended up being the grave of the gunman, who had landed on his own gun, which cut him in half.
Gnarly stood on his hind legs with his front paws up on the side of the grave which was too deep for him to crawl out of nor was it long enough him to be able to gain the speed to jump out.
Mac couldn’t help but laugh. “What did you get yourself into now?”
Gnarly backed up and tried to jump out of the pit, only to manage to get his front legs on the rim. Unable to gain traction with his back legs, he tumbled down to land on his back on top of the dead gunman.
“I guess you need my help, huh, Gnarl?” Mac laughed.
Answering him with a snarling bark, Gnarly dropped down and dug in the dirt.
“What are you going to do? Dig yourself out?” Mac laughed again.
Gnarly stood and stretched up the side of the grave with something in his mouth.
“What’s that he’s got?” David knelt next to Mac.
Delaney directed his light on Gnarly, who had something clutched in his teeth. They all moved in to get a closer look at the prize Gnarly had dug up in the bottom of the grave.
It was a decomposed arm with the hand still attached.
Chapter Seventeen
“You’re letting that filthy dog sit in my seat?” Randi Finnegan’s voice went up two octaves when she came around the corner of the cruiser to find Gnarly in the front passenger seat with the window open.
“Hey, he deserves it,” David said while scratching the dog behind both ears. “He’s taken out two hired assassins in twenty-four hours. Better than what you accomplished back there.”
Too mad for words, she rammed her knee into David’s groin, causing him to buckle over and fall to his knees.
“Am I going to have to separate you two?” Mac asked when he hopped over a fallen tree to join them, only to find David down on his knees.
“I’m going to have Delaney drive me back to the manor.” Randi whirled around to go hunt down the agent.
“Are you okay?” Mac watched David slowly pull himself up to his feet.
“Sure,” David answered in a pained tone. “I didn’t want to have any kids anyway.” Steadying himself against the side of the cruiser, he made his way around to the driver’s side and climbed in.
“What did you do to Finnegan now?” Mac asked after climbing into the back seat.
“What I always do to women. I opened my mouth without thinking.” He started the cruiser. “How’s Delaney’s man?”
“Got hit in the shoulder,” Mac answered while fastening his seat belt, “which is better than the guy who shot him. He got one in the forehead.”
“Any idea who the hand belongs to?”
“Could be one of a dozen people,” Mac said, “that they know of. That’s not counting the guys they don’t know about.”
“But no thoughts about where Bonito is,” David said.
While looking over his shoulder to ensure that the way was clear for David to back out onto the mountain road, Mac shook his head. “They found the cell phone. It forwarded the texts from another phone, which, from what they were able to determine here, had been shut off.”
“He could have called from anywhere in the world.” David spun the wheel to turn the cruiser around to head back down the mountain to Spencer Point. “Most likely, he’s not even in the area.”
Seeming to agree with him, Gnarly turned around in the front seat, planted his front paws on top of the back of the seat, and uttered a low bark.
“Yeah, Gnarly,” Mac said to the German shepherd, “That’s something to think about.” He asked David, “Are you heading back to the station?”
“I still have a few questions for Nora Crump,” David said. “Something doesn’t smell right about her husband’s murder.”
“That bad smell started when she sent you on a wild goose chase,” Mac said.
“Did you ever have a witness send you on a complete wild goose chase?” David asked.
“Only those who were in on it,” Mac said. “Who was in the car she sent you after?”
“I said I didn’t catch ‘em.”
“You lied.”
David caught his eye in the rearview mirror. “What makes you think I lied?”
“Two things.” Mac held up his index finger. “You’re too good to lose a suspect. If they had outrun you, you would have hunted all night for them. You came back too soon to have lost them.” He held up a second finger. “You’re mad about it. What happened? Was it a car full of nuns and you pulled your gun on them?”
“No.” With a heavy sigh, David concentrated on the road.
“You can tell me.” Even in the back seat on the passenger side of the cruiser, Mac could see the firm set of David’s jaw. “What happened?”
“It was a car full of drunken women on their way home from a bachelorette party,” David finally said. “They offered me seventy-five dollars to strip for them. When I told them that I was the chief of police, they giggled.”
Mac burst out laughing.
“They had a designated driver. She had the decency to be mortified and kept trying to get them all in line, but they were drunk out of their gorges. When I refused to strip, two of them tried to tear my clothes off. They were grabbing for things they had no right grabbing.” He raised his voice over Mac’s humor. “It’s not funny, damn it!”
Mac bit his lip. “You’re right. It’s not funny.” He chuckled. “They should have at least offered you a hundred.”
“Of course you can laugh about it.” David pulled over to the side of the road, put the cruiser into park, and whirled around in the seat. “Look at you. Mac Faraday. The Lord of Spencer Manor. Simply because of the accident of your birth, you get respect from people who haven’t even met you.”
“You get respect,” Mac argued.
“Seventy-five dollars to take off my clothes!”
“Which you didn’t do, I assume.”
“Look at
me, Mac!” David said. “Stab wound from a little old lady in a wheelchair who happens to be my mother, who hates my guts, and hiding in my big brother’s home because I’m too much of a wuss to handle the nightmares in my own home!” He whirled back around to face the front. Mac suspected he didn’t want him to see the tears in his eyes.
“No wonder,” David said in a low voice. “I wouldn’t respect myself, either.”
The two of them sat in awkward silence.
When David reached for the gear shift to put the car into drive, Mac reached up to clasp his shoulder. “Yeah. Look at me. I’m sitting in the back seat of a cruiser while my dog is sitting in the front because he doesn’t respect me enough to let me sit up there.”
With a whine, Gnarly lied down and buried his face in his paws.
“You’re talking about a dog, Mac. Big difference.”
“I respect you.”
“You feel sorry for me.”
“No,” Mac said. “You’re feeling sorry for yourself right now—anyone would with what you’re going through with your mother. I went through the same thing when my wife left me. If my own wife, the woman who had vowed for better or worse, who knew me better than anyone on the face of this earth, had so little respect for me that she would take another man into our bed, then how could anyone else respect me and my badge?”
David hung his head. “I guess there are similarities.”
“I know it’s tough, David.” Mac squeezed his shoulder. “But you’re not alone in this. I’ve got your back. Archie has your back. Bogie has your back.” He chuckled. “Even Gnarly has your back. You’re never alone.”
“That’s hard to remember sometimes.”
“Remember it,” Mac said. “Have faith that when you come out on the other end, you’re going to be stronger for it.”
“If it doesn’t kill me first.” David put the cruiser into drive and pulled out onto the road to continue down the mountain.
After a long silence that made his head ache with the tension David was going through, Mac leaned against his seat belt to ask him, “Did you know that Gordon Crump drank his coffee with double cream?”
