by Lauren Carr
“There was no need for Yurievich to take out Gordon or Polk,” Mac said thoughtfully.
“And if they were going to do it, they wouldn’t have planned the hit to go down so that both the bride and groom were killed,” Chris said. “Yurievich was old fashioned that way. He didn’t like killing women and children.”
“He may not have liked it, but he did,” Mac said. “The guy ran a white slavery operation and Russian porn.”
“Like I said, it was a whole different world,” Chris said. “Different rules. In their world, women can be abducted and exploited, but you only kill them if you have to. My point is, if Yurievich was behind Polk’s murder, which I’m ninety-nine percent sure he wasn’t, he would have ordered it done before Polk’s wedding and not when his bride was anywhere around.”
Mac turned around in his seat to face him. “Are you familiar with the Polk and Pratt murders?”
“Two detectives murdered on their wedding night in the bridal suite of a hotel swarming with police and no one sees or hears anything? Kind of hard not to hear about it.”
“I imagine deep undercover in the Russian mob, you had to have heard something about it on the streets.”
“You didn’t quite answer us when we asked about a police detective moonlighting as a professional assassin,” David said. “You only said that if it was a professional hit, Yurievich wasn’t the client.”
In silence, Chris looked at them out of the corner of his eye.
“You have three daughters,” Mac said. “Brie Pratt had a daughter from a previous relationship. I promised her that I’d find out who took her mother away from her.”
Chris sighed. “How certain are you that these murders were professional hits?”
“Killer got in and out of the hotel without anyone seeing a thing,” Mac said. “The killer wears a disguise. He hacked into the Willard’s wine locker inventory, copied a master key card, and managed to get in and out of the kitchen without notice.”
“Do you know who else knows how to do all of those things?” Chris asked.
David and Mac exchanged glances as the answer came to them.
“Police,” David muttered.
“Specifically, undercover officers.” Chris sat back in his seat. “Back around that time, when I was working the Yurievich case, there had been a few hits among the organized crime families and gangs on the street. It shook everyone up enough to have us all looking at each other. The hits had the earmarks of professional assassinations. The feds looked into the hits because the gangs and mob families were threatening wars against each other. The victims were known criminals who had gotten off on violent crimes.”
“Vigilante,” David said.
Chris moved up to crouch between the two front seats. “One hit, I remember was particularly brutal. He was a pimp who had abducted a teenaged girl and beat and raped her into working for him. The police rescued her, but she was too scared to testify against the pimp. Since she wouldn’t testify, there was nothing the police could do. He walked. Days later, he was thrown off the roof of a twelve-story building.”
“I worked that case,” Mac said. “My suspect was Bruno Gordon. He was furious and threatened the pimp.”
“The detective who arrested me and Yurievich? Killed six months before the bride and groom murders? Did you say the double murder was sixteen years ago?”
“Sixteen,” Mac confirmed.
“The vigilante wasn’t Gordon then,” Chris said with a shake of his head. “The last hit I heard attributed to the vigilante was about the time my last daughter was born. That was seven years ago.”
“Why would a vigilante kill detectives?” David asked.
“Are they dirty?” Chris asked.
“Not Gordon.” Mac shook his head. “Gannon was. Pratt and Polk were sloppy but not dirty.”
“Maybe they were on to your guy being a vigilante.”
“Gordon and I were supposed to meet the day after he got gunned down,” Mac recalled. “He told me that he had information that was going to blow my mind.”
“Would learning that a fellow detective you worked closely with was a vigilante tossing pimps off twelve-story buildings blow your mind?” Chris asked.
Chapter Seventeen
Will Harrington ran his fingers over the red swollen hole in his right shoulder. Turning the lights up in the bathroom, he leaned in closer to the mirror to examine the gunshot wound. In the day since one of the bullets that Mac Faraday had fired at him found its mark, it had become infected. The throbbing had grown worse during the night.
It didn’t help that the bullet was still in his shoulder. The bleeding had stopped. That was a good sign. The fever was not.
Don’t be a wuss, old man. Just push through the pain and do what you need to do.
Getting down to business, Harrington picked up his phone and used the Inn’s online application to check out. It was best not to be seen in and about the hotel until he had everything in place to make his escape. The police would know the make of his car and its license plate number. That meant finding another way to escape the area.
Find a way to get off the grid.
Harrington had been aware of the Inn’s security people keeping close watch on the wedding guests. He had noticed the muscle-bound brute with a ponytail who always seemed to be close-by whenever he left his room.
Don’t they teach surveillance techniques at the academy anymore?
Kicking himself for the slip up at breakfast, Harrington shoved his backup weapon into the holster built into the top of his boot. He checked the time remaining on his phone’s timer. Five minutes left. That’ll give me time to shave.
He removed his semi-automatic from where he had it tucked into the waist band of his jeans and set it on the bathroom counter—close enough to lay his hands on it.
While waiting for the running water to get hot, he studied the hair coloring’s progress. It seemed browner than red. Between the change in hair color and shaving off his mustache and beard, he should be able to slip away before anyone noticed his absence from the wedding.
Beggars can’t be choosers. He had purchased the box of hair coloring at a department store near his home on his way to Spencer several days before—just in case. He had suspected things would turn sideways. His gut instinct had told him to skip the wedding all together. He had retired seven years earlier. He’d been living alone in a cabin in the rural mountains of Pennsylvania. For all anyone knew, he was too feeble to make the trip.
He couldn’t resist seeing how close Mac Faraday had come to figuring it out.While he had embraced his hermit-like existence, he also yearned for the excitement of the old days.
Your curiosity is gonna get you killed, old man.
He lay his hand on the gun. Wrapping his fingers around the grip, he brought the muzzle to his head. The metal felt cold against his face, which was flushed with fever.
Always knew that if anyone was going to figure it out—it’d be Mac Faraday. No way is he going to let you slip away free and clear, old man. Seems only fitting that you go out this way.
“Mom, I really don’t like the idea of going to a bridal tea.” Gabriel screwed up his face in response to Archie Monday’s invitation that he and his mother join her and Gina Johansson’s bridal party for a luncheon in Spencer Inn’s Tea Room, an elegant café with a garden décor.
Not really the place for a young man.
Gabriel and his mother had played a rousing game of racquetball. Afterwards, she got a massage and facial while he took advantage of the arcade.
At the appointed time of noon, he reconnected with Hope in the lounging area where Archie invited them to join her for the bridal luncheon. One, it was all women. Two, Gabriel sensed that he was underdressed in his sweats.
He slipped into the loveseat next to Storm, who put her head in his lap. “I’ll stay here with th
e dogs. The mayor and I can have a debate about lowering the legal age for drinking alcohol.”
In his reserved seat, Gnarly opened one eye and arched an eyebrow in Gabriel’s direction as if to say, “Fat chance.”
“You need to eat lunch,” Archie said.
“I’ll eat with David when he gets back. He said we were going to do something together this afternoon. He promised that we’d go fishing before we go back to Norfolk.”
Pleased to see what appeared to be a sign of Gabriel forming an attachment to David, Hope broke into a broad grin. “Okay, but we don’t know exactly when he and Mac will be back.”
Gabriel took the cell phone out of his pocket. “I’ll text him to ask if he knows.”
“You have David’s cell number? When did he give it to you?”
“This morning,” he replied while tapping out and sending the message. “Why shouldn’t I have it? He is my father.” He shot her a wicked grin that reminded Archie of Mac as well as David. “At least, that’s what you’ve told us.”
Hope tapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t be a smartass.”
His phone dinged to signal a message. Gabriel grinned when he read it. “ETA thirty minutes. He said he’ll take me for pizza down at Robin’s Pub.” He winked at his mother. “Sounds better than the Tea Room.”
“Pizza and beer. I’m jealous,” Hope said.
“Don’t you like tea and cucumber sandwiches?” Archie asked.
“They don’t serve cucumber sandwiches on aircraft carriers.” Hope paused to kiss Gabriel on the forehead. “I want you to behave yourself. Don’t take the SUV for a spin while waiting.”
“But—”
“Please. It’ll put David in an awkward position. It doesn’t look good for the chief of police’s son to be blatantly breaking the law. Promise me, Gabriel.”
“I promise,” he said grudgingly.
“Don’t wake up the mayor. They say to let sleeping dogs lie for a reason.” Archie patted Gnarly on the head before escorting Hope to the stairs leading to the Tea Room on the ground floor.
To her son’s amusement, Hope swung her hips and shoulders to mock a high society walk. As they descended the stairs, she pumped her eyebrows at him.
“I saw that,” Archie said with her back to her.
Alone, Gabriel sat back in on the loveseat and stroked the top of Storm’s head. The Belgian shepherd gazed up at him with complete adoration. He was already growing fond of her—even if she did lack eye-snout coordination. During the night, he was surprised when he felt her jump into bed with him. He suspected it was because his mother was sleeping in David’s room and they had closed the door.
That was weird. He had never known his mother to date anyone since the man formerly known as his father had left them.
Gabriel had been devastated when his “adopted father” had told him that he wasn’t his son. Not only that, but that he didn’t want him in his family because it would confuse his “real son.”
While Gabriel had been hurt—he wasn’t surprised. There had been no fight for custody. Visitations were cancelled more often than kept. He sensed that what visitations had occurred had been due to his mother’s insistence. What little relationship Gabriel had with his father had been only that mandated by the courts.
It had been a father-son relationship on life support. His adopted father had simply pulled the plug to kill it.
If anything, his grandmother was more of a father to Gabriel than his father. She had purchased the Porsche after it had been discovered in a collapsing outbuilding on an abandoned farm. Together, they had spent three years restoring it. She had taught him how to use tools, build and repair things, drive a car, ride a motorcycle, and fly a plane. She had also taught him how to smoke cigars, drink beer, and belch out a tune.
Storm moved in closer to him and began to snore. Gabriel’s face broke into a smile.
His “adopted father” hated dogs. He forbade Hope from getting him one. After the divorce, she had traveled so much that they were forced to live with his grandmother, who considered dogs to be too much responsibility. They cramped her style. To discover that his real father had a dog was like a double treat.
His phone dinged.
ETA 20 min. Do U no where Robin’s Pub is? Take ski lift to bottom of the hill. Order pizza w whatever U want. X-large. Pitcher of soda. Mac & I will meet U there.
Gabriel tapped out his reply. C U there.
He stuffed the cell phone into his pocket. Leaving Storm to sleep on the loveseat, he went outside. He trotted to the path leading to the ski lift. There was a thick tree line with patches of woods between each ski run. As he was making his way up the slope to the ski lift, he heard a pop in the direction of the woods.
The noise resembled a gun shot from a small caliber weapon.
Narrowing his blue eyes, he looked into the woods.
There was a quick movement behind a tree.
Gabriel stepped off the path. As he neared the tree line, he could make out a pair of feet, which led to a pair of legs belonging to a man lying in the brush with a growing pool of blood beneath him.
His heart pounding against his ribs, Gabriel backed away. He was about to spin around and run for help when he saw the muzzle of a gun aimed at him.
“Don’t move or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
“We found Harrington’s car in the parking garage,” Hector reported to Mac on the speaker phone in his SUV. “We’ve removed the battery from under the hood. He won’t be able to go anywhere.”
“Unless he finds another mode of transportation,” Mac said while trying to keep his attention on the freeway leading back to Deep Creek Lake.
“I have my people keeping watch on the shuttles, cabs, everywhere,” Hector said. “Carnes is tailing him and says he hasn’t left his room since breakfast. When you guys get back here with a warrant, all you’ll have to do is knock on the door and arrest him.”
“Harrington isn’t going to go down that easy,” Mac said. “He shot his way out yesterday—”
“Why’d he do that if he was going to come back to the hotel?” Hector said. “That is flat out crazy.”
“Crazy like a fox,” Mac said. “He wanted to lead us away from the Spencer Inn because that’s where he was. He wanted us to think the killer had escaped the area. He knew I’d seen him and would make him as Derringer’s assassin. He hung around, purposely waiting for me, so he could lead us on a chase.”
“Like the mother bird who leads predators away from the nest,” David said.
“There are shuttles all around the lake,” Mac said. “Once he ditched the Mercedes that he had stolen—”
“Totally unaware that there was a dead body in the trunk.”
“He changed out of his disguise and then took a shuttle back up to the hotel,” Mac said. “I noticed last night that he had trimmed his beard. I thought he had done it to make himself presentable for the wedding. Actually, he trimmed it and put on a wig as part of his disguise to shoot Derringer.”
“Well, he’s smart, but we’re smarter,” Hector said. “He’s not going to get away this time.” He disconnected the call.
“Did Underwood confess to protect Harrington?” David asked. “Were they in on the murders together? What’s their motive?”
“Vengeance,” Mac said. “Harrington fits the profile Matheson just gave us for the vigilante. He’d worked undercover for years. Was completely immersed in the streets where they all lived by different rules.”
“Justice is an eye for an eye,” David said.
“Gangs and organized crime,” Mac said. “Harrington lived among it, and I can only imagine what he saw. When he came in out of the cold, he had that sense of street justice ingrained in his core. He had to live as one of us, with our rules for civilized living, but he had become one of them.”
“His
sense of values had become warped.”
“Bruno Gordon must have figured it out. After I had accused him of killing the pimp, he went nosing around to clear his name.”
“And figured out that his own boss was the killer.”
Mac spun the steering wheel to make their exit. “Somehow, Harrington found out he knew—maybe Bruno told him to give him a chance to turn himself in. I can see Bruno doing that. Instead, Harrington took him out.”
“His comment this morning to you about Bruno getting shot by a sniper on the roof gave him away,” David said.
“It was never released to anyone that the kill shot had come from a rooftop,” Mac said. “Harrington realized his mistake as soon as he’d said it. He knows I know.”
“Is that why he killed Trevor Polk and Brie Pratt? Because they knew?” David asked.
“Polk was killed six months later.” Mac shook his head. “There had to be another motive. If he knew it was Harrington, he’d certainly have said something sooner. I think Polk and Pratt were killed because their sloppiness got Gordon killed.”
“But if what you’re saying is true, Harrington killed Gordon because he found out about him being a vigilante. He would have killed him even if he hadn’t gotten out of the car.”
Mac tapped the steering wheel in thought. “We know Derringer killed Gannon, because he knew she’d buried the information about the second witness—Lynda with a ‘y.’ Underwood couldn’t have killed Derringer because he was with Sanchez down at the pub. I saw Harrington at the elevator. He even called me ‘Mr. Faraday’ this morning to let me know.”
“If Harrington is a vigilante,” David said as his phone rang, “maybe he killed Derringer for retribution for Trevor Polk and Brie Pratt’s murders, which Underwood actually did commit.”
He checked the caller ID which read “Gabriel.” He connected the call and brought the phone to his ear.
“Hey, Ga—”
“You can put that gun away. My SUV is parked right over here. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.” Gabriel’s voice was muffled.
