Darcy said, “She was going to kill me.”
“I know.”
“I heard a gun,” she said. “Thought maybe they shot you.”
Brack pointed to his leg. “She grazed me.” At that moment, he noticed her arm. “You’re bleeding.”
She looked down. “Yeah. So are you.”
He set his gun on a nearby console table, took out a handkerchief, and wrapped it around her arm. “I found Cassie,” he said. “She’s dead too.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Wednesday, eight p.m.
Tara went to get her SUV parked in the back lot of her apartment complex. The pavement was faded gray except where Brack’s Porsche had exploded. There it was charcoal black. She sensed several men coming up behind her.
One of them said, “Where do you think you’re going?”
Tara turned to face Levin. He had four other goons with him.
She said, “I was about to head to your house to shove your face in the toilet, but since you’re here, it will save me the trip.”
Levin said, “You got a smart mouth for a channdo. You won’t be so smart when we finish with you.”
Two of the goons approached her. She dropped one with a roundhouse kick. The other fell with a toe to the groin. Then the other three moved in together. One caught her in the face with a set of brass knuckles and she saw stars. Another blow from behind and she was on the ground. Half conscious, she saw them surround her and felt the repeated blows as they kicked at her body. After the first three or four blows, it felt to her as if the beating was happening to someone else.
When she realized they’d stopped, she couldn’t see anything.
Levin was close when he said, “It was a big mistake breaking into that warehouse. We lost a lot of money. Gotta make it back somehow. I want you to know that when we leave here, we’re going to that zoo you work at. I hope you said goodbye to all your pets, because we’ve got a buyer who wants all the ivory we can get him. And since we’re now short six crates, we need more.”
She spit in the direction of his voice and heard him curse. Then she felt the blows on her back and head. Then...nothing.
The loud revving of their motorcycles woke her.
She couldn’t move her right arm, but managed to wiggle the fingers of her left hand. She used it to feel around for her purse and found her phone.
Using Siri, she dialed a number.
While Brack stood over Regan’s dead body, his phone vibrated. He checked the number and answered, “Tara? Where are you?”
A hoarse voice said, “Get to Grumpy.” A cough. “Levin is on his way to kill them all.”
“What? Are you all right?”
“Get to the Preserve. Now!”
This wasn’t good. “Where are you?” he asked again.
“I’ll...be okay. Just…get to Grumpy.” The line went dead.
Darcy said, “What’s going on?”
“Something’s happened to Tara. I have to get to the Preserve. Call Nichols. I’ll be back.”
The Mazda started, and he raced to the Preserve. En route, he called Tara’s brother. Told him what he knew. Darnel said he’d try to find her.
A bad feeling settled in Brack’s gut. Levin and his goons had gotten to her. And now they were going after the only thing she really loved—besides her brother. Brack merged onto the interstate and made a promise: they would not succeed. No matter what.
It took twenty minutes of a hundred-mile-an-hour-plus speed to reach the exit to the Preserve. He barely slowed in time for the ninety-degree turn. At the entrance, three things were immediately evident. The security guard was not at his post. Five very expensive motorcycles were already parked. And Brack had left his gun on the table beside Regan’s dead body.
He got out and ran to the bikes, hoping to find a gun, or anything, he could use. Inside one of the saddle bags, Brack found a length of chain. Grabbed it. Also a six-inch blade that he holstered under his belt. As Brack ran through the entrance, he heard Grumpy’s distinctive trumpet call.
The bikers had already found Tara’s baby.
Brack doubled his speed, the chain clinking in his hands.
Another call from Grumpy. Brack rounded the corner to Grumpy’s shelter and saw him fifty feet ahead. Levin and four others had cornered the behemoth against the steel fence. Grumpy was trying to use his tusks and front feet to keep them at a distance, but Brack could tell the elephant was scared.
Levin aimed a rifle. Two others had hatchets.
With his right hand, Brack swung the chain over his head. Its length fed out six feet as he approached. It caught Levin around the throat and wrapped twice around his neck. Brack pulled the chain tight with both hands. Levin jerked back and Brack heard the snap of bone. Before the dead body hit the ground, Brack let go of the chain, slid the knife from his belt, and threw it at the closest goon with a hatchet. The business end of the knife struck home in his gut. The three bikers remaining on their feet, one with a hatchet, recovered from their shock. Brack grabbed Levin’s rifle lying beside his body and smashed it into the nose of the goon with the hatchet. A fourth biker caught Brack in the face with a hard brass-knuckled punch. Brack saw stars and barely felt his knees hit the dirt.
Even in his dazed condition, something was off. Brack imagined he felt...an earthquake? His eyes regained focus in time to see Mr. Grumpy crash into the brass-knuckles guy. The man did a face-plant against the fence. Without delay, Grumpy scooped up the last biker with his tusks and tossed him into the air.
Brack watched the man sail ten feet above Grumpy, screaming, then drop like a rock directly on top of the spiked fence. Brack knew he would never forget the sickening sound of flesh and bone impaling on steel.
Grumpy let out another trumpet call, came up beside Brack, and swayed his head and body a hundred and eighty degrees, as if ready for another attack.
In the calmest voice he could muster, Brack said, “It’s okay, Grumpy. We got them.”
The animal belted another cry.
“Good boy.” Brack eased to his feet, his balance still off from the brass-knuckled blow.
Grumpy stopped his head movement, did a slow turn, and approached him.
Brack put out his hand. Grumpy lowered his head and nuzzled his trunk against Brack’s palm. “That’s right, boy.”
Darcy’s news crew got to the scene even before the police. And well before she did. Grumpy chased a cameraman onto the roof of one of the buildings. Brack felt bad for both, but no way could he do anything. A ten-thousand-pound pachyderm can do pretty much whatever he damn well pleases.
Tara’s coworker, Jeanne, arrived next and showed extreme care in getting all the elephants to calm down, bribing Grumpy with watermelon.
When the police arrived, one look at the carnage Grumpy and Brack had inflicted produced calls for several ambulances. Levin and two others were headed straight for the morgue: chalk up two for Brack, one for Grumpy. Not bad for a night’s work.
Sadly, the bikers had bound and gagged the security guard. The stress was too much for the elderly man, and he had a heart attack and died. That alone would send the two goons still living to jail for a very long time.
While Brack waited to hear from Tara or her brother or Darcy, he helped Jeanne feed Mr. Grumpy. The elephant had already inhaled the melon and now seemed content munching on apples. As Brack ran his hand along Grumpy’s lower shoulder it occurred to him that he’d saved Grumpy’s life and Grumpy had saved his. As if sensing Brack’s worry over Tara, Grumpy turned his head and gently rubbed Brack’s chest with the end of his trunk.
“We’ll find her,” Brack said. “We’ll find her.”
Grumpy let out a soft grunt.
One of the police officers got Brack’s attention by clearing his throat. He’d been smart enough not to make any loud noises to startle Grumpy. Instead,
he stood by the door and motioned Brack over.
The officer said, “We’ve got word on your friend, Tara. She was assaulted and is at Emory Hospital.”
“Will she make it?” Brack asked.
“They roughed her up pretty good. She’s in the ICU.”
Brack returned to Grumpy, patted him one last time, and told Tara’s coworker where he was going.
She sighed and said, “This is all so terrible.”
It was, Brack thought, not good. Too many of his friends were hurt, hospitalized, or dead. But they’d run out of bad guys at the moment, so that was positive.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Thursday morning
With Nichols’s help, Brack was able to find out how Cassie died. According to the M.E., Regan had apparently strangled her own sister. Brack visited Mutt at the hospital to say goodbye to his friend and inform him of the M.E.’s conclusion. Mutt, already visibly saddened and upset about Cassie’s death, turned away and asked to be alone.
“Of course,” Brack said as he opened the door to leave Mutt’s room. He added, “I love you, my friend. You ever need anything, you know where to reach me.”
The doctors said Mutt would eventually make a full recovery from his physical injuries. Brack wasn’t sure about the emotional ones.
Tara was at a different hospital and Brack needed to drive across town to visit her. Because she was in such good physical condition at the time of her attack, she would also make a full recovery. With tears in her eyes, she thanked him for saving Grumpy and the other elephants. Brack described Grumpy’s heroics. She said she couldn’t wait to return to her day job at the Preserve in a week or so. She wouldn’t be going back to work at Mutt’s bar. He kissed her goodbye and made sure to exact a promise from her to look him up if she ever came to Charleston.
The drive from the hospital gave Brack time to collect his thoughts about the previous weeks. Vito made his flight, but not in the manner in which he most likely preferred. After everything that went down, the police contacted the feds, who contacted Vito’s native country—Mexico. When it became apparent that Vito had engaged in crimes of murder, extortion, prostitution, and drugs against citizens of his own country along with the endangered species violation of ivory smuggling, the United States happily changed his status to persona non grata. Vito probably now wished he’d been able to stay in the U.S.
Vito’s handler, his grandfather Marcus, was another story. The United States would not grant him entrance. That was why his grandson had carte blanche on how things were run. Without another suitable heir to put in place, all their business holdings were divided up by the remaining underworld figures in the same way a fresh kill was split up by a group of lions in the wild. The strongest got the lion’s share.
The Rastas did not come around looking for any money for supplying him with their guns. Brack figured they were thankful Vito was headed for a life or death sentence. For all he knew, they now ran the city’s underworld.
The two goons not killed by Grumpy and Brack ended up in jail for breaking into the Preserve and causing the death of the security guard.
Because Jackie Boyd came to the rescue and fought for both Brack and Darcy, no charges were filed against them, despite their having left quite a few bodies on the ground, in the one-way alley, and at Vito’s lake house. With Vito and Kualas out of operation, the natural order in the city had shifted.
Brack’s last stop before picking up Shelby and heading home was Reverend Cleophus’s church. Though the Mazdaspeed3 was a fast car, it wasn’t him. He also realized the Porsche hadn’t been him either. Brack donated the Mazda to the Reverend, who could have his brother sell it again. The Reverend gave Brack a ride back to Mutt’s house, thanking him for the donation. Brack asked about Mindy and Kai’s parents. With a sad face, the Reverend said that each woman was grieving over her loss and considering leaving her husband.
The only other disturbing news was that Townsend had disappeared. He checked himself out of the hospital and vanished. Brack had a feeling he might be meeting up with the monster again, but not any time soon.
Later that day, Brack and Shelby waited in Mutt’s driveway for Brother Thomas and Trish to pick them up and take them back to Charleston. They said they had some errands to run and would be by shortly. Brack thought again about how crazy and tragic their Atlanta experience had been. So much death and, in the end, all for nothing. Cassie and Regan were both dead. While he couldn’t prevent Cassie’s death, he’d caused Regan’s and would have done it again if he had to.
At that moment, a brand-new Mustang rumbled into Mutt’s drive, interrupting his thoughts. The shiny black paint, chrome wheels, and 5.0 badges put Brack in a trance. As the performance machine pulled to a stop and the engine turned off, its dark-tinted windows kept him from seeing the driver.
Shelby gave a quick but happy bark as Darcy got out of the car.
The sun was just coming up over the Atlanta skyline. Bright rays glistened off her blonde curls. With all three of them a couple of years older than when they first met, she was still a few years away from thirty, and even with bandages all over her face and arms from the holly bushes she’d fallen into, as beautiful as ever. Especially with that crease between her eyebrows when she was focused, like now.
Brack’s dog ran to her.
She knelt and kissed his head. “Hello, sweetheart. I missed you too.”
Brack said, “Nice ride.”
She stood and tossed him the keyfob to the car.
Brack looked at it and then at her.
She said, “Consider this an early wedding present.”
“I thought I was supposed to get you something.”
She didn’t answer him.
While trying to puzzle out her meaning, he noticed she was no longer wearing her engagement ring.
Her reply was to wrap her injured arms around his shoulders and kiss him on the lips. She said, “You will.”
About the Author
David Burnsworth became fascinated with the Deep South at a young age. After a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tennessee and fifteen years in the corporate world, he made the decision to write a novel. Big City Heat is his third mystery. Having lived in Charleston on Sullivan’s Island for five years, the setting was a foregone conclusion. He and his wife call South Carolina home.
Books by David Burnsworth
The Brack Pelton Mystery Series
SOUTHERN HEAT (#1)
BURNING HEAT (#2)
BIG CITY HEAT (#3)
The Blu Carraway Mystery Series
BLU HEAT (Prequel Novella)
IN IT FOR THE MONEY (#1)
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Big City Heat Page 26
