And still no pursuers.
Not yet.
I blinked hard and looked at Manny, who was grinning white teeth from one side to the other.
“Madre de Dios,” he said.
“Amen.”
I pulled up next to her and the poor, terrified girl ran right past us, never slowing for a second. I don’t think she even saw us, so entranced she was—so intent on putting distance between her and the bad people.
I got out of the car and called to her, “MELISSA.”
She stopped immediately without turning around.
“Macaulay?”
She turned around slowly and then, when she realized we were police, that I was ‘Macaulay’, and that she was finally, after all these years, safe, she ran into my open arms.
Father Rule and Jax came back to where Spence stood. Spence could not meet their gaze and stared at the ground.
“What. Have. You. Done?” Rule was spitting his words, confounded. It was clearly a feeling he didn’t appreciate nor one with which he had any familiarity.
Spence Grant did look up then. He looked up with rage stretching his skin taut and his teeth grinding and his eyes on fire. He did not know how he’d been freed, though he knew it had something to do with Jax because Jax was his puppeteer—a part of him. If Jax hadn’t let go, then what else explained him being himself again?
All Spence knew for certain any longer was that his little girl was free, if only for now; that he would never again allow himself to be controlled by these monsters; and, that he had absolutely no chance of surviving the rest of the night.
“I let my baby girl go,” Spence said directly to Rule. “Is that something you’re incapable of understanding?”
Rule stepped forward and jammed his monstrous fingers and hand into Spence Grant’s chest, splintering his breastplate as if made of balsa wood, and in one quick, effortless move, pulled from Spencer a mangled, bloody, dead heart. He did it so quickly that Spence was left standing there for perhaps an entire second, silent, a happy smile turning ever so slightly on his mouth, then his oxygen bereft brain caused him to crumple into a heap of lifeless flesh and bone.
Rule said not one word. He tossed the heart aside into the scrub brush like a piece of unwanted trash.
“Don’t test me,” he said to Jax.
“We’ll get her back.”
“Oh, we’ll do nothing of the sort,” Rule said. “You will get her back. You know how much depends upon it. But understand this: if I have to do this all myself, I will.”
“I know you will,” Jax said, and sprinted off into the night.
11
THE DISTANCE seemed longer with the indelible silence. I don’t think any of us knew just what to say yet. Melissa sat in the passenger seat, next to me, and Manny rode lookout in the back. I suppose there wasn’t a lot to say right then. The action that had unfolded told the tale.
We had her.
That was the thought that raced through my mind as if looped on reel-to-reel.
The issue was that I didn’t know whether to feel good or terrified. It wasn’t as if we’d saved the day. It wasn’t an old Western where you scooped the girl up on to your horse and rode into the sunset. In our world the sunset (and every other direction) held danger.
But like an old Western, every posse in Rule’s command would be after us. Melissa—a sweet, somehow untainted young woman—was the prize. And no one would leave us alone until they had it back.
Manny broke the silence when I went west on I-70 instead of east, which would have taken us back to the precinct. “Where are we going, boss?”
He trusted me. I could hear it in the lack of challenge in his voice and demeanor. He never stopped watching our six.
“We need to come up with a solid plan,” I said. “And I don’t know about you and Melissa here, but I could use a little breathing room and some time to decompress.”
“Amen to that,” Manny said.
Melissa smiled ever so slightly.
“Bum Garvey has a place up here in Idaho Springs.”
“Idaho?” Melissa said, then all ears, her face happy and anticipatory.
“Sorry, honey,” I said. “It’s just the name of a town. But my friend has a place there where we can have a few hours to get some rest and to figure out what to do next. I promise you, you’ll be safe there. In fact you aren’t going away from me ever again, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, and leaned against the window, perhaps looking out toward the Idaho in her mind—one with a mother and sister to go home to.
I had no idea how much she even knew. It was clear she’d been completely isolated all this time she’d been in Denver.
Ten years.
I’d seen P.O.W.s that had spent six months in isolation that would never be the same again. There was a deadness to the eyes; an absence of information. I couldn’t possibly know how she was treated although from what I’d seen back at the warehouse, there had been at least a semblance of “home”. Her room had looked more or less like any teenage girl’s room.
“Macaulay?” she said.
“Melissa, I’d be so happy if you’d feel comfortable calling me Bobby. Or Mac. My friends call me those and I plan on being the best friend you ever have. Not just now, okay? Forever friends.”
She moved across the seat and threw her arms around me and a torrent of tears burst from somewhere deep in her soul. I kept one hand on the wheel and hugged her with the other. “I’m so sorry for everything that has happened to you, sweetie. I am not letting you face anything like that again.”
“Thank you, Macaulay. I mean—Mac—I like that.” And she giggled just a bit through the sniffling and tears.
“I like hearing you say it,” I told her.
She kissed me on the cheek before sliding back into her seat.
“Mac,” she said to no one in particular.
I looked in the rearview and Manny was wiping the water from his own eyes.
We pulled off the interstate at an exit just past the tiny mountain burg of Idaho Springs and then took to a dirt road that climbed into the trees, gaining elevation as we went. After about five miles, the road forked and to the right a sign told us there was no outlet. I went right. We continued to climb until we reached the top of a small mountain and the road dead-ended at a gate and twelve-foot fence that would have made the kooks at the Branch Dividian compound in Waco, Texas, jealous.
“Holy shit,” Manny let loose. “Oops. Sorry.”
Melissa turned around and smiled brightly. “It’s okay, Manny. Shit is hardly a bad word anymore.”
“I’m still sorry, little miss. Mac’s always telling me to watch my mouth. I’ll watch mine and you watch his, okay? He swears like a drunken sailor.”
I got out of the car and approached the elaborate control center where there was a speaker, a keypad, and a large lever. The lever, I knew, would disable the electricity that ran through the fence—but only after I entered the code.
Once I punched in the sixteen-digit cipher and turned down the lever, the gate slowly slid to the right. I got back into the car and drove through. Sensors registered our passing, the gate closed, and the lever moved back into place.
“Don’t ever touch the fence, not anywhere on the property,” I said to them.
“I can see why you decided to come here,” Manny said. “Holy smokes.”
“Holy shit,” said Melissa and we all laughed. It felt good to release the tension.
When we reached the large cabin with a full wrap-around deck, I knew Manny then appreciated the true advantage to what Bum had built up there in the wilderness. There was nothing higher than the deck of the cabin for five miles in any direction and no trees obstructing the view, three hundred and sixty degrees.
“You could defend this position against a platoon. A whole company, even,” Manny said, mesmerized.
“Wait until you see the arsenal.”
At the door were two keypads. I entered a different sixteen-digit
code into the first pad and nothing happened.
“Wrong code?” Manny said.
“See that green light down in the corner,” I asked him.
“Yep.”
“I just alarmed the interior fenceless perimeter. It parallels the fence out there, halfway between the house and it, all the way around the property.”
“What does that do,” Melissa asked. She had the look of a student in school, soaking it all in and completely in wonder.
“The ground is planted with Xenon gas. A hybrid of levels and kind used in state-of-the-art hospitals. Developed by one of the agencies as—believe it or not—an environmental-friendly, twenty-first century knockout, or, KO gas. Instant, completely debilitating, and not only illegal for personal use, sort of Top Secret. So no stories. Bum has friends in high places, but even still, not cheap.”
“Jesus,” Manny said. “Is this guy—Bum—is he stable? No offense intended.”
“I’d trust the man with my own little girls,” I said. “To include you, Melissa.”
“My friends used to call me Em.”
“When I say ‘my little girls’,” I said to her, “I have triplet daughters at home that are ten-years-old. I want you to know I now have a fourth, Em.”
I entered the second code that dis-alarmed the front door only. After we walked inside and I closed the door, it re-alarmed automatically.
“Normally Bum wouldn’t use half this high-tech protection. But it’s a bit of a conundrum, him working for the CBI,” I said. “He’s a firm believer in the Second Amendment and the civilian’s right to defend against any militia, even homegrown, if absolutely necessary. Beyond that, I’ve never known a more patriotic soul.”
“What’s CBI?” Melissa said.
“Colorado Bureau of Investigations,” I told her. “Sort of like a state version of the FBI.”
She nodded her head and continued into the house.
“Everything inside is safe,” I told them.
“Thought you were going to say the furniture was electrified,” Manny said.
“Funny guy.”
“I thought so, too, Manny,” Melissa said.
I had to admit, the first time I visited, that was pretty much my reaction.
Daylight was long upon him but Jax didn’t stop running until he’d crossed interstate C-470, miles through the scrub and arroyos where he’d tattered his jeans and bloodied his legs, and went to a strip mall to find a clothing store. He turned the latch on the front door and flipped the Open sign to Closed. There were three employees—Jax subdued, gagged, and tied them, and put them in a rear storage room.
He then walked throughout the store, picking three nondescript t-shirts, a pair of jeans, a pack of underwear, and some good lightweight all-purpose boots. He went back into the room where he had stored his captives.
“I’m going to remove your gags for the moment. If you make a sound at all, even a question, I’ll tear out your throat. Are we on the same page now?”
All three women, two of whom were streaming tears, nodded. Jax removed the gags.
“The way this works is I ask the questions. You answer. If you’re good at following directions and telling the truth, all this ends fine. You lose a couple hundred bucks of clothing and get to go home to your loved ones. Starting with you,” he said, pointing at the woman on the left, “and in order, tell me what kind of car you have here at the store.”
Total silence.
“This isn’t Simon Says,” Jax told them. “Just answer the question.”
“I-I have a 2006 Ford Explorer,” said the first captive.
Jax nodded and looked at the lady in the middle. “A 1999 Dodge Intrepid,” she said.
The third woman had a 2011 Escalade.
“You are the owner,” Jax asked and the woman burst into tears. “I did tell one lie, but it’s not worth crying over.”
“W-what?”
“I’m going to need cash. Not a lot. Just some pocket money. How much is in the register?”
“Maybe a hundred and a half.”
“Is there a safe?”
The woman nodded and pointed to an office in the back of the storage room they were in. Jax untied her and pulled her toward the office. When they reached the safe, the woman knelt and began working the combination lock. Inside was a nice take for anyone whose goal was a robbery. Jax took around a thousand dollars in tens and twenties.
He walked her back to the other two who hadn’t moved an inch in his absence. He gently pushed the owner down to the floor again but didn’t tie her.
“You, with the Explorer. Where are your keys?”
“In my purse. It’s the Coach bag and the keys are on a chain with a skunk on it.”
“A skunk?”
“It’s the character from Bambi. My daughter got it for me. A birthday present her father let her pick.”
“Here’s the thing,” Jax said, putting a gag back in each of their mouths but still leaving the owner untied. “I could tell you not to report this, but we all know once I’m gone, you’re going to anyway. I’m not concerned about the robbery, or the kidnapping, but I can’t have every cop in the state looking for your 2006 Explorer.”
He calmly leaned over and put his hands on the cheeks of the owner. “I am truly sorry, but you’re the oldest.”
And he twisted quickly, snapping her neck, killing her instantly.
The other two went into muffled hysterics.
“QUIET,” Jax commanded.
Silence.
“When you talk to the police, you tell them everything. In fact, you tell them I took all the money and you two divide what’s left in the safe. Here’s the important part: say absolutely nothing about the stolen Explorer. You, call your husband and get him to drive you home. I will have a police scanner. The first report of a stolen 2006 Explorer with your license plate, I stop what I’m doing, go to the address on the drivers’ licenses I am taking with me, and I slaughter everyone I find. And if you’re not there, I’m a patient man. Look at your boss.”
Jax grabbed the corpse by the front of the outfit and lifted it; the head rolled around in macabre half-circles, as if on ball bearings.
“Believe me, she felt nothing. You, with the skunk-loving daughter? I’ll skin her in front of you and your husband before doing the same to you. So, you can end up stinking animal carcasses or, split up what I would guess is eight or ten thousand dollars back there and pin it on me. You look reasonably intelligent. The decision is yours.”
He then went to the front of the store and fished the keys from the Coach purse and took the licenses of both ladies. He went outside and found the Explorer parked in a spot further from the store than most.
We sat down in the high-ceiling living room with a huge fireplace, cliché light-colored cabin furniture and talked about our next move.
“Here’s the thing,” I told them. “We just don’t know who we can trust. Rule could have half the police department. Hell, sorry, heck, he could have them all by now.”
“We’re screwed,” Manny said.
“I don’t think so. I have a theory. Big surprise, I know. But I have been thinking a lot about this. Not just today or the Judas killings, but way back, ten, twelve years. All the stuff I told you, Manny. Em, you probably know things I don’t, but trust me, I will tell you the whole story one day, okay?”
Melissa nodded.
“If Rule and the rest of them were capable of doing what they did to Jax, Amber, Spence—sorry, Em’s father—then they’d have done it. Why not embody the whole city? The whole country? Obviously there are rules here to this—excuse me, Em—motherfucking game.”
“Fuck, fuck, motherfucker, Goddamn, piss, shit, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Melissa said. “I’m not a child. I’m almost nineteen. With all the things we have to worry about, the last thing you need to be doing is wasting a single brain cell on speaking politely around me. Deal?”
Manny and I looked at each other, eyes wide, eyebrows at our hairlines—
with two, identical “well, whaddaya know?” kind of expressions.
“Deal,” I said.
“Si,” Manny said. “Trato hecho, senorita Em.”
“Thanks for that, Em,” I said. “Well this has been a goddamned game since day one. But now I’m thinking of it in literal terms. Both times I’ve faced down these, these—shit, I can’t say it myself. This is all so crazy.”
“Bad guys,” Manny said. “That’s what I think. It helps. Let’s just agree—we say ‘bad guys’, we know what we’re talking about.”
“Some bad-ass bad guys,” I said. “But I like it. Em?”
“Works for me.” She looked clearly happy to be included.
“Bad guys it is. Okay, every time I’ve faced down these bad guys, it’s always somewhere remote. The mountains. I mean way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere.”
Manny looked confused.
“People,” I said. “No people. Nothing approaching a town much less a city.”
“So you think they can only amass, attack, whatever, away from people?” Manny said.
“That oversimplifies it. There are a lot of people, whether they believe in a god or not, they do—to some degree—believe that everything is interconnected. Energy, right? From Einstein to shit like The Secret. Positive energy, negative energy. But when we’re talking about actually affecting tangible events—success, failure, possession, bad guys—what is the key word? What makes energy positive, for example?”
“Belief,” Manny said.
“Exactly. What if these bad guys can only feed on the weak-minded, or those who have a predisposition to believe in the whacky paranormal crap. More importantly, imagine the energy created by a city full of naysayers. You could pick one here, one there, sure, but maybe that’s why they can’t just march down the city streets, thousands of these bad guys, because no one fucking believes in them—at least not yet.”
“So can I ask something?” Melissa said.
“Of course, honey, ask away.”
R.S. Guthrie - Detective Bobby Mac 03 - Reckoning Page 12
