After the Sunset

by Mark Stone

  ‘So?” Rebecca asked, pulling me out of my momentary daze.

  “So, what?” I stammered, looking at her.

  “What did Boomer say?” she asked, turning off the stove and moving the pot from the heat.

  “He said he talked to Lilith himself,” I answered. “Said she was dramatic. He even sent someone to talk to Dennis Chambers, and I don’t have to tell you how well that went over with his father.”

  “The mayor’s son caught up in a murder scandal a few weeks before the election,” Rebecca said, momentarily leaving the sauce and pasta behind and walking toward me. “I can see where that would be an issue for the guy.”

  “You can maybe also see why Boomer might think it’s a little suspect,” I said. “I can’t think of a better way to torpedo a re-election campaign. One whiff of this and every deep pocketed backer Edward Chambers has would have headed for the hills.”

  “You think Lilith might have made it up as part of some strategy?” Rebecca asked from the other side of the table.

  “I think it’s certainly a possibility, and I’d bet it’s a huge part of the reason why Boomer doesn’t find her very credible,” I said. “You have to admit, it makes more sense than some kid’s best friend planning to murder him.”

  “I don’t know,” Rebeca said. “I’ve spent time with Lilith. She might be a little rough around the edges, but she doesn’t strike me as a liar or a cheat. Her husband certainly isn’t.”

  “The right hand doesn’t always know what the left hand is doing,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Is that right?” Rebecca asked, grinning at me. “Is that a preview of what our married life is going to look like?”

  I blushed. “Not at all,” I answered. “What you’re forgetting is that, in our case, the right hand is a hell of a lot smarter than the left.”

  She rounded the table, moving toward me. “I’m the right hand?” she smiled.

  “You are definitely the right hand,” I said.

  “I better be the right hand, Mr. Storm,” she said, pressing herself against me and leaning up for a kiss.

  “Whatever you say,” I said, leaning in. “Is it too soon to call you, Mrs. Storm?”

  “Don’t jinx it,” she whispered, her breath falling against my cheek.

  “I couldn’t if I tried,” I said. “There is nothing- nothing- that could pull me away from you.”

  I leaned in, pressing my lips against hers. As if to prove me wrong immediately, my phone rang.

  “Damnit,” I muttered.

  “Answer the phone, Dillon,” she grinned, pulling away from me. “It might be important.”

  “This is important,” I said, closing my eyes in frustration.

  “Good,” Rebecca answered. “That means it’ll be important later, too. Now answer the phone.”

  I chuckled at her, reaching down and grabbing my phone. “Dillon Storm,” I said as I answered.

  “Dill, we got trouble,” Boomer’s voice sounded from the other end of the line.

  “Boom?” I asked. “I thought you were asleep.”

  “I was,” he answered. “But there’s no rest for the weary. That goes double in Naples.”

  “What happened?” I asked, my heart tightening in my chest.

  “There was a car accident,” he said. “Kid ran into a telephone pole.”

  “That’s awful,” I said. “Really it is, but don’t you have officers on duty to deal with something like that?”

  “Sure do, Dil,” he said. “But this kid’s mother; she’s going crazy. She’s screaming, asking for you, saying this is on your head.”

  “Me?’ I asked. “Why on earth would-”

  “It’s Joel Mayberry,” Boomer said, cutting me off. “The kid in the accident tonight is Joel Mayberry.”

  “Lilith’s son?” I asked, the breath catching on my throat.

  “One in the same,” Boomer said solemnly. “And Dil, I’m pretty sure the kid’s brake lines were cut.”

  Chapter 4

  I drove like a mad man through the night until I reached the pinpoint marking on my phone that indicated Boomer’s location. Even at this time of night, the traffic in town had ground to a halted line thanks to the accident. You could blame the warm weather and the tourists it brought for that.

  Still, I barely noticed it, jutting onto the shoulder with my red and blue lights shining and driving until I saw the source of the delay.

  Four police cars were pulled off to the side, their lights shining as well. In addition, a few unmarked cars sat near the wreckage of a red convertible, smashed all along the front and wrapped around a telephone pole.

  My heart stuttered as I saw it and the ambulance beside it. Throwing my car in park, I hopped out, my breath coming quick and ragged. The air was warm tonight, warm and moist as it rolled off the Gulf. There was an eeriness too, a quiet that only seemed to exist in Florida when something horrible was building on the horizon. I used to feel this sort of horrible calm when the worst sorts of storms were brewing, and I felt it now.

  Smelling exhaust, I caught sight of Boomer. He looked every bit as tired as he’d sounded on the phone, sunken in eyes and a face full of stubble.

  “Boom,” I said, swallowing hard. “Is the kid alright?”

  “He’s alive,” Boomer said, walking toward me and shaking his head. “At least for the moment. “He’s pretty banged up though. He wasn’t wearing his seatbelt.”

  “Seriously?” I sighed.

  “Don’t say it like that,” Boomer said. “He’s twenty-two. You remember all the stupid crap you did when you were twenty-two?”

  “I remember the stuff that didn’t happen after a long night at Rocco’s,” I answered. Pursing my lips, I added, “which begs the question, has this kid been drinking?’

  “Don’t know,” Boomer admitted. “If he has, he was still coherent enough to speak. He was on the phone with his mother when it happened.”

  “Distracted?” I asked.

  “According to the mom, he told her he couldn’t stop the car. He told her his brakes had gone out,” Boomer answered, looking out at the road. “And look, no skid marks. The kid didn’t even try to slow down. Even if he was drunk, even if he was distracted, he likely would have tapped the brakes at some point, wouldn’t he?”

  “Unless he couldn’t,” I conceded.

  “We’ll look at the car when we have the site cleaned up and everything,” Boomer said. “My guess is Lilith is right. Somebody cut his brake lines.”

  I nodded pensively. “Which means that, more likely than not, the kid’s mother was-”

  “You son of a bitch!” a loud voice shouted in the distance, cutting me off. I turned to find Lilith marching toward me. Her face was drowned in tears, her hands were shaking fists.

  “Mrs. Mayberry,” I said, breathing heavy in the direction of the woman. “I’m sorry that this happened. I want you to know that-”

  She reared back and slapped me hard across the face. Her palm sent a shockwave of hurt through me, and not all of it was the physical kind. This woman was in unimaginable pain and she undoubtedly blamed me for that.

  “I don’t give a damn what you have to say, Dillon Storm!” she answered, blinking back fresh tears. “You did this! The both of you did!” Her eyes darted to Boomer. “I expected it from you. You’re a damn shill. It wouldn’t surprise me if you were in the mayor’s pocket already, but you, Dillon; I expected better from you. I expected Rebecca Day’s soon-to-be husband would at least listen to me. I thought he’d at least entertain the idea that I was telling the truth.”

  My heart broke for her as I attempted to answer. “It’s not that I didn’t think you were telling the truth, Lilith. It’s just that-”

  She reared back to slap me again, but Boomer grabbed her hand in the middle of the movement.

  “I know you’re going through a lot right now, ma’am,” he said as calmly as he could manage. “But hitting him is assaulting an officer and it’s a felony regardless of what else
is going on. I won’t ignore it twice.”

  Lilith looked at Boomer and then back to me. She pulled her arm away quickly and blinked again. This time, she couldn’t stop the tears from rolling freely down her cheeks.

  “You’re supposed to be the police,” she said softly. “You’re supposed to help people. You’re supposed to keep us safe. It’s your job.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “If I’d have thought-”

  “I told you!” she said, cutting me off me. “How could you not have thought it when I stood there flat-footed and told you what would happen?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I thought maybe you were being dramatic. I thought you-”

  “There was no evidence, ma’am,” Boomer said. “In fact, we still don’t know what happened here.”

  “The hell we don’t!” Lilith snarled. “Dennis Chambers did this. He tampered with my boy’s car. He wants him dead.” She looked back at the ambulance. “And he just might get his wish.”

  “I will get to the bottom of this,” I said, setting my jaw. “I promise you, if this went down the way you said it did, I will find out. I’ll get the evidence. I’ll figure it out, and the people responsible will pay.”

  Lilith narrowed her eyes at me. “Am I supposed to thank you?” she balked. “Am I supposed to fall to my knees and offer my deepest gratitude that you’ve finally decided to do your damn job?” She moved her hand again though, probably remembering what Boomer said, refrained from hitting me again. “I was right the first time, and I’m right now. If my son doesn’t die from his injuries, Dennis Chambers will finish this.”

  “No, he won’t,” I assured the woman, a fiery rage building up inside of me. “I’m about to go see him, ma’am. And, if he’s responsible for this, I’m about to nail his ass to the ground.”

  “Good,” Lilith said, still looking at me with disdain. “I’m going to go be with my son now. I have a very low opinion of your capabilities right now,” she continued, looking from Boomer to me and back again. “There’s a very good chance I’m about to be the first lady of Naples. My opinion is going to be very important moving forward. Don’t let it get any lower.”

  I nodded and, with that, she walked to the ambulance.

  “You should get an officer to watch that kid’s room,” I said, watching the woman climb in the ambulance and seeing it drive away.

  “We still don’t know what’s going on here, Dil,” Boomer reminded me. “For all we know, this could have been an ill-timed accident.” He shook his head. “I don’t do well with threats or ultimatums, even from people in power. Regardless of what Lilith thinks, I’m not in the pocket of the current mayor, and I have no intention of being in the pocket of his successor or his wife.”

  “This isn’t about who is or isn’t in power,” I said. “We screwed up. If this is what she says, and my gut says it might be, we should have acted. A kid suffered because we didn’t. Let’s not let him suffer anymore.”

  “Whether or not he suffers anymore is out of our hands now,” Boomer answered. “That’s up to your girlfriend and her co-workers.”

  “She’s my fiancé, and thanks for reminding me,” I said, looking over at the ambulance. “I doubt she’ll get much sleep tonight.”

  “Something tells me you won’t either,” Boomer said. He motioned to Lilith. “Might as well make it mean something.”

  I looked at Lilith. She was standing at her car, fumbling with her keys and crying so hard her entire body was shaking.

  “Got it,” I said, swallowing hard and walking toward the woman.

  “What the hell do you want?” she asked, still looking down at her car and sneering.

  “I want to help you,” I said.

  “Then do your job,” she shot back.

  “A fair point,” I said, shaking my head. “But my job consists of more than bringing justice to people who have already been hurt. I have to stop people from hurting themselves.” I took a deep breath. “You want to be with your son. I get that, but you can’t drive like this. You’ll get yourself killed, and what good will that do for your son?”

  She glared up at me wordlessly.

  “Let me bring you to the hospital,” I suggested. “I’ll make sure you get there safely. I’ll drop you off, and I’ll get to the bottom of this. You want me to do my job, let me do all of it.”

  “Fine,” she snarled, and placed the keys firmly in my palm as the ambulance drove away. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 5

  “I told you!” Lilith yelled into the phone. Her tears had been replaced by white hot rage. It seemed that, like Boomer and I, her husband hadn’t believed that their son was in any danger either.

  “No!” she said, shaking her head so furiously that I was sure it was going to twist all the way around like that little girl in the Exorcist. “Don’t you dare use that tone with me! Do you have any idea how it feels to be me right now? I tried to tell you. I tried to tell everybody, and what did all of you do? You treated me like I was insane, like I was some stupid girl who was wringing her hands over nothing.”

  She stopped for a beat and, as she did, the Bluetooth in her car picked up the call. Suddenly, I was privileged to both sides of this marital spat, not that I wanted to be.

  “Listen to yourself, Lilith,” Gary Mayberry, Lilith’s husband and would be mayor, answered. For as frantic as Lilith sounded, Gary sounded equally cool, calm, and collected. His voice was flat and measured, and his words seemed worn and familiar. Something told me this wasn’t the first time he’d had to talk his wife back from the metaphorical ledge. “We have no idea what happened tonight.”

  Lilith fumbled with the phone, obviously trying to send the call back to a more private setting. She soon got tired of that though and, with a grunt, tossed the device into the backseat and roared at her husband through the speakers.

  “Of course, we know what happened!” she shouted.

  “I can pull over and give you guys some privacy,” I suggested in a whisper.

  She raised a hand to both dismiss me and shut me up.

  “He was almost killed tonight, Gary,” she continued. “He still might die.”

  “What?” Gary asked. This time, his voice didn’t sound so collected. “What are you talking about it? You said he was awake when they put him in the ambulance. I assumed this was like last year. I figured he had just had a few and veered off the road. I thought-”

  “Last year was a fender bender!” she shot back, throwing me a look laced with daggers. She probably thought I was making note of the fact that, last year, her son seemingly got drunk and got into an accident. I was, of course, but it didn’t change the fact that part of me thought she was right in what she was thinking. “This is nothing like that. His entire car was wrapped around a damn telephone pole.”

  “Is he alright, Lilith?” he asked. “How concerned do I need to be?”

  “Now you want to be concerned?” she scoffed. Looking over at me, she continued, “You men are always too late to do any good. If you really want to be useful, just stay home. Even seeing you up at the hospital would just serve to make my blood boil.”

  A beat of silence followed. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, that Lilith wanted to keep her husband from their son’s hospital bed when he was in such a condition. As it turned out, Gary couldn’t believe it either.

  “Have you lost your damn mind?” Gary asked, anger potent in his words. “If you think I’m going to sit at home while our son fights for his life, then you-”

  With that, she clicked her husband off, pressing the ‘end’ button on the screen of her car’s fancy radio.

  He tried to call back immediately, but she pressed the ignore button, her eyes trained on the taillights ahead of us, on the ambulance carrying her son.

  “You’re getting married, right?” Lilith asked, looking over at me from the corner of her eye.

  It seemed an out of place question, given the reaming she’d just given to both me and her husba
nd. Still, it was better than being screamed at. So, I answered.

  “I am,” I confirmed. “Though we haven’t set a date yet.”

  “Good,” Lilith said. “Not setting a date means you haven’t paid anyone, and that means you won’t be out any money when you call the damn thing off.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked, narrowing my eyes, which were still trained on the road. It had started to rain lightly and, if I knew Florida the way I thought I did, that rain would get harder pretty quickly. I flipped my wipers on and took a deep breath. “What on earth would make you think I’m going to call off my wedding?”

  She turned her entire body in my direction, looking at me with red-rimmed, weary eyes.

  “Did you hear what just went on between my husband and me?” she asked, laying her head against the headrest.

  “I did, unfortunately,” I confirmed. “Though I have to admit, I’m not sure what that has to do with my engagement.”

  “Everything, Dillon,” she said. “What you’re looking at, what you just heard, is a preview of what your life is going to look like.”

  I gave the woman a quick and measured look. She was in unimaginable pain. So, I needed to choose my next words carefully and with great care toward her feelings. Still, she didn’t know me or my relationship with Rebecca. I couldn’t let her act as though she did.

  “You and your husband have been through a lot tonight,” I said, my hands firmly on the wheel. “It’s only natural that your nerves would be frayed.”

  She chuckled loudly and bitterly. “Is that what you think, that I went off on him because my nerves were frayed?”

  “Isn’t it?” I asked.

  “You have no idea where my husband was tonight, Dillon,” she said. “You don’t know that his town car took him to a fleabag motel on the edge of Naples or that his secretary was there waiting for him.” She shook her head. “You don’t know that she’s been waiting for him there every Friday for the last seven years. He didn’t pay me any attention when I told him about my concerns for Joel, because he doesn’t give a damn about me or Joel. That’s who your favorite candidate for mayor really is.” She wiped tears from her eyes. “Honestly, I’m not sure why I was so mad at you. Gary didn’t believe me due to indifference. You probably just think I’m crazy.”