Rough Justice (The Scarecrow and Lady Kingston Book 1)

by Tristan Vick

  The bullet passed through and hit the assassin in his leg. The bullet penetrated his thigh and caused him to briefly stumble back. Luckily, this strategy let Beck break free just long enough to give Julie a clear shot.

  Before Julie could fire off another round, however, the assassin quickly spun around, and with his menacing blade, he sliced the back of Beck’s legs and kicked her into the pool.

  Without his human shield to protect him, Julie opened fire. Blasting away didn’t seem to work since the man’s body armor simply absorbed the impact of the bullets as if they were nothing more than pellets from an air gun. Julie took aim at his head and fired her last shot.

  With lightning reflexes, the assassin deflected the bullet with his knife. With a sharp clang, the bullet ricocheted but this time shattered his blade. The severed blade fell to the ground with a clatter.

  Just then, the man hit a panel on the side of his neck, and with a hiss of compressed air, his mask opened.

  Julie beheld two creepy, yellow eyes beneath tinted sunglasses. They were snake’s eyes.

  “I was definitely not expecting that,” Julie muttered to herself.

  Beck flailed her arms miserably, trying to pull herself to the surface of the water, but she’d been immobilized by the slash to the back of her legs, and the bullet wound to her shoulder made it impossible to swim properly. Sinking to the bottom, her lungs burning to get a gasp of air, she let out a flurry of bubbles and swallowed in the water. Her eyes widened with fear as she slowly drowned.

  Julie yanked out the empty clip and popped in another as she aggressively charged forward. Running along the edge of the pool, she fired rapidly until her secondary clip was spent. Julie released that clip and slid in her backup one, now only a couple meters away from the villain.

  The snake-man smiled, showing his fangs, and leapt off the edge of the elevated patio and disappeared into the thicket of the trees that ran all the way to the bottom of the hill. Julie ran to the edge and looked over, but all she saw was the shuffling of trees and a mixed up tangle of shadows.

  “Shit!” Julie cursed. Tossing her gun away in frustration, she immediately turned back around and dove into the pool. Reaching around Beck’s arms, Julie kicked hard, and the two women rose to the surface.

  John arrived with Jersey Blair just as Julie surfaced with Beck, and they helped pull both women out of the pool. Listening for Beck’s heartbeat, panic filled Julie. “Her heart has stopped!”

  Full of adrenaline, Julie crawled up to Beck and began administering CPR. Pinching her nose, Julie put her mouth to Beck’s and blew air in. She pumped Beck’s chest three times, blew into her mouth again, and repeated.

  “It’s not working!” John said in an extremely worried voice.

  “The suspect is getting away,” Jersey said, drawing her sidearm. With one arm limp at her side, she turned to the group and said, “I’ll get him.” With that she took off after the killer.

  “Wait!” John called out.

  “It’s fine,” Julie said. “You go back her up.” Not wasting any more time, Julie climbed onto Beck’s torso, and started pushing down on her sternum with both hands. “Don’t die on me, you crazy-ass bitch!”

  Scarecrow dashed into the thicket of trees and headed down the hill in pursuit of the killer and Special Agent Blair.

  20

  BOMBSHELL THREAT IN BLONDE

  Beck spewed water out, gagged, and coughed, then took a throat-rattling gulp of air.

  Julie grabbed Beck’s face and, in a moment of pure, exuberant relief, kissed her squarely on the lips. “You really had me worried,” Julie sid, then started bawling.

  Beck sat up and embraced Julie, and the two women hugged each other and cried.

  “Why did you shoot me?” Beck sobbed into Julie’s warm embrace.

  Julie pulled her in tight. “Sorry about that. I didn’t have any choice. It was the only way to save you.”

  Beck’s sobs suddenly changed to small laughs. Through a clatter of shivering teeth, she said, “I just realized, you shooting me makes us even for the other week. I’m sorry I shot you.”

  “I’m sorry I shot you too!” Julie lamented.

  Laughing together, Julie took Beck’s hand in hers and clasped it tight. Looking into each other’s eyes, the veil of all pretenses were lifted away, and all that remained were their bare souls. Julie leaned in and kissed Beck again, her lips pressing gently into Beck’s, but this time, her hesitation melted away.

  A surge of ecstatic energy shot between them, and what began as one of the most delicate kisses in the history of kisses turned into wet tongues and the biting of lips. As passion overcame them, Beck pulled Julie down onto her and kissed her back with the same unbridled passion.

  Scarecrow shot through the grove of trees and stepped out onto asphalt. Looking around, he spotted Jersey up the road. She was standing next to the suspect, and for a moment, he thought they were talking to one another. Once Special Agent Blair noticed him, however, she put the gun to the villain’s head.

  “Wait!” John called out, extending his hand, but it was too late. She had already pulled the trigger.

  Scarecrow ran up to the body and checked his pulse, but he was dead. Looking up at Jersey, he frowned. “Why did you go and do a thing like that?”

  “It was necessary. In my condition, I wouldn’t have been able to fend him off.”

  “But I could have provided back up.”

  “I didn’t know if you were coming,” Jersey lied. “Besides, in such situations, you can only react.”

  Scarecrow stood up and paced back and forth for a minute. Their one lead into the mysterious assassinations had dried up, and it no longer seemed that Jersey was a suspect – although she was certainly acting suspicious. As he paced nervously, Jersey bent down again and reached into the killer’s jacket and pulled out a cigarette lighter. She lit herself a cigarette and then looked back up at Scarecrow, who stood staring at her in complete shock.

  “What?” Jersey mumbled, the cigarette teetering on the edge of her lip. “You have a problem with me smoking?”

  “Besides the fact that smoking will kill you?”

  “Yeah,” Jersey laughed, taking another drag on the cigarette.

  “Well, it’s just that … how did you know the lighter was in his pocket?”

  “Lucky guess,” Jersey answered. “Lots of people keep their lighters in their jackets.”

  “But you knew exactly where the lighter was hid: in his inside jacket pocket. You didn’t frisk or search him, you went straight for the lighter. That could only mean one thing; you knew him.”

  Jersey puffed on the cigarette, then looked down at the lighter in her hand. “Well, shit,” she said, realizing her foolish mistake.

  “Was he working for you, and you killed him before he could give you away? That way Jersey Blair lives to kill another day?”

  “Something like that,” Jersey answered, flicking her cigarette to the ground and stomping it out with her boot heel “I guess a congratulations is in order, Detective.”

  “Why do I have the feeling you’re not at all worried, Special Agent Blair?”

  “Because, if you must know, Special Agent Blair is dead. She has been for a very long time.”

  Scarecrow’s eyes widened with revelation. “Tiffany? Tiffany Blair?”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out sooner. You’d come the closest of anyone.”

  “All I needed was a little more time,” Scarecrow assured her. “I would have figured it out eventually. If not me, then Lieutenant Kingston.”

  “So what hung you up, Detective?” Tiffany Blair asked, flicking the lighter on, then clamping the lid shut only to repeat the process. The clacking of stainless steel sounded ominous.

  “I just couldn’t figure out why Jersey Blair was so hell-bent on getting revenge for a sister whom she hardly even knew. None of it made any sense. But as it turns out, it was the other way around. You were getting revenge on the man who kil
led your big sister.”

  “It wasn’t just about the revenge. It was about the opportunity. You see, Jersey came to me all those years ago and wanted me to go undercover for her, but I wasn’t comfortable with it. Seemed too much like a setup. When I refused, she dolled herself up and went in my place. When Senator Durrell killed her, I knew things would have gone differently if I would have just helped my sister like she had asked.

  “I made it my personal vendetta to get payback no matter the cost. I became a call girl, worked my way up the organization, and eventually became one of the senator’s regulars. Prim and proper Special Agent Blair by day, profligate, seasoned whore by night. I threw myself into each role and became those women. I fooled drug lords, I fooled the FBI, and I fooled you too. And I would have kept fooling everyone if I hadn’t given into the smallest of vices—a stupid cigarette.”

  “But why poison all those innocent women? Why leave so much death and carnage in your wake?”

  Tiffany clapped the lid of the lighter shut and looked up at Scarecrow with cold, penetrating eyes. “The FBI were too cowardly to bring the senator’s transgressions into light, and promptly restricted the information. So I decided to do what I do best. Leave a trail of death and carnage so great that they couldn’t be ignored.”

  “So unable to use his actual murders to incriminate him you hoped to frame the senator for a whole batch of different murders, is that it?”

  “Oh, he was guilty of his fair share alright, but I didn’t want to let him get away squeaky clean when he was the dirtiest worm that ever lived. I wanted that son of a bitch to rot—in prison or an open field somewhere. It didn’t matter to me how, just as long as he paid for his crimes and his lifeless carcass was meat for the vultures. My plan would have worked too, but then I got careless.”

  “Snow White?”

  “She was a regrettable mistake,” Tiffany said disingenuously.

  “No, that’s not it,” Scarecrow said, circling Blair, who watched him from the corner of her eye. “You intended for her to die like all the rest. That’s why you set up your brother Blake “The Razor” McDoogle to fall for you. But why? Trying to fill your brothers notorious shoes, perhaps?”

  “My brother is a fool. All he cares about is power. But killing is an art. And like any art, masterpieces cannot be rushed,” Tiffany said, biting her tongue, not even attempting to conceal the fact that she enjoyed the pain. Composing herself, she smiled again. “Blake is a true psychopath. Naturally, he revels in the suffering of others. I didn’t even have to twist his arm. He was more than happy to take Lieutenant Kingston and that Hollywood whore out for me. As for Snow White, I couldn’t help myself. She was so beautiful and innocent looking. She just didn’t belong in this world of darkness and corruption. As far as anyone should be concerned, I did her a favor.” Tiffany turned and faced Scarecrow and smiled at him with an unnervingly manic grin.

  Reaching into his jacket pocket, Scarecrow retrieved a set of handcuffs. Extending them toward Tiffany, he said, “If you don’t mind?”

  “Oh, but you see …” Tiffany began. Bending back down, she fetched a small black tin can from inside the dead man’s jacket and then turned back to face Scarecrow. “I do mind.”

  Suddenly, Tiffany squirted Scarecrow with lighter fluid. Jumping back in fright, Scarecrow cried out, “What’s this?”

  Lighting the cigarette lighter, Tiffany smiled and then tossed it. Scarecrow watched the lighter spiral through the air as if in slow motion, then the flame licked his sleeve. Almost instantaneously, his jacket sleeve was set ablaze, and before he knew it, his entire arm had giant orange flames growing from it.

  A vicious grin curled onto Tiffany Blair’s face, and she could hardly stop herself from laughing as she watched the flames consume the Scarecrow. As he burned, she remarked, “It looks like you were right after all, Detective. Cigarettes do kill.”

  “No!” a voice cried out, and Julie emerged from the nearby tree line and dashed to where Scarecrow was flailing, orange flames crawling onto his back.

  Peeling off her wet leather jacket, Julie used it to try and smother the flames. Wrestling Scarecrow to the ground, she finally managed to get him put out, but not much of his limbs remained. Both of his arms were completely burned away, and his face was half charred. Even his legs were singed. Worst of all, he was barely alive.

  “I’m afraid,” he wheezed, and taking a deep breath he said, “Twas brillig, and the slithy toves; Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogroves, And the mome rathes outgrabe.” With his last line coming to a close his eye sockets went dark, and the white, marble-like eyes that showed such spirit faded completely away.

  “Don’t die on me!” Julie screamed down at him. That’s when she felt the muzzle of a gun pressed to the top of her head.

  “And here I thought you’d be the one to finally catch me.”

  Julie looked up at the woman holding the gun to her head with the unnerving blend of an angry scowl and giddy grin. As Julie’s mind raced to figure out what the hell was going on, it finally dawned on her. All the pieces of the puzzle fell into place, and finally she saw the big picture.

  “Goddammit!” she cursed, kicking herself for her foolishness. “I’ve been Keyser Soze’d!”

  “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world she didn’t exist,” Blair gloated, giving an even more scathing smile.

  “You threw me off by feigning ignorance when it came to the snake’s venom. In actuality, you know about it all too well. I should have figured as much. After all, nobody is that stupid. At least not anyone who’s trained to be FBI.”

  Tiffany Blair shrugged as if to say, “So what?” and then pressed the muzzle of the gun even harder into Julie’s forehead.

  “So now what?” Julie asked, looking up past the barrel of the gun at her captor.

  “Now, you die, I’m afraid.”

  Julie smiled curtly and then let out a terse chuckle. This unexpected reaction threw Tiffany Blair off her game and, luckily, distracted her from her murderous task.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Honestly,” Julie said, leaning into the gun, showing that she wasn’t afraid, “I expected more from the notorious Serpiente Femenina.”

  “Sorry to disappoint,” Tiffany remarked. “But when you’re as good as I am, the killing is easy. Sometimes you forget what a real challenge feels like. But I have to admit, Lieutenant, you and your partner proved to be the best challenge since I dismantled Juan Diego’s drug empire.”

  “What do you mean, you dismantled Diego’s drug empire? I thought he was the one who saved you back in Mexico?”

  “He saved me from the streets, but he made me his personal sex slave. Do you know how many abortions he forced me to have?”

  “I’m sorry you had to endure that hardship,” Julie said.

  “I WAS FIFTEEN!” Tiffany roared, rage flooding her veins and causing her to tremble. Taking a deep breath, she composed herself and went on. “After I got my revenge on that godforsaken town, I went into hiding. That’s about the time that Jersey tracked me down and offered me a deal. But I didn’t want to get involved in the assassination of an American politician as I’d have the CIA, FBI, NSA and anyone else with a badge hunting me for the rest of my life.

  “A few weeks after turning down the offer, I heard of my sister’s death, so I took her identity and faked my own death, and then I went after Diego myself. I knew his every move. His every hiding place. After all, he taught me to think exactly like him. Taking him down made Jersey Blair a legend within the FBI. From then on, I could write my own ticket.”

  “So you bring honor back to your sister’s name, you get your revenge, and then what?”

  “Then I live happily ever after.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Now will you just shoot me already?” Julie complained, sharing her best fake smile. “Because your incessant monologuing is—literally—to
o agonizing to bear.”

  Both women stared at each other with a mutual disdain so powerful it could have ignited sparks between them.

  Tiffany shrugged again and, squeezing down on the trigger slightly, said, “Well, if you insist.”

  Bang! The sound of the gunshot echoed all the way up and down the dimly lit road—only a streetlight at the top of the bend providing any light. Julie’s heart virtually stopped in her chest, and she fell onto her back, her face frozen in wide-eyed fear. Looking up at the stars, Julie thought everything would simply fade to black, but then, nothing happened. Sitting up abruptly, Julie checked herself for bullet wounds. Again, nothing.

  Astonished that she wasn’t dead, Julie looked around until she saw Jersey Blair, or Tiffany Blair, or whoever the hell she was, with a bullet hole through the side of her head, lying right next to her. Blood pooled around her head, while the snake-man in the body armor lay just a few feet beyond her, and to her other side lay a still-smoldering scarecrow.

  “You alright, Lieutenant?” a man’s voice called out.

  Looking around, Julie saw Detective Jack Wolfe jogging toward her, holding his gun by his side.

  Looking down at the body of Tiffany Blair then back up at Jack, Julie said in perplexed exasperation, “Dude, you killed the girl you were porking.”

  “As it turns out,” Jack replied, “she was madder than a hatter.”

  “True enough,” Julie muttered to herself, shaking her head in disbelief. Things had not turned out as she’d expected them to. But that was life.

  Extending his hand, Jack helped Julie up. Keeping her grip, Julie squeezed hard, letting him know how thankful she was. “Thanks. And I’m not just saying that as your boss. I owe you one.”

  “No problem,” Jack said. “Just doing my job. Also, the paramedics are back at the house as we speak attending to Ms. Beckensale. Just thought you’d like to know that.”