The Promisor: A Suspense Thriller

by Dustin Stevens

  Tilting his chin to the side, DMick peered out from around his hands. Contemplating the request a moment, he eventually shifted his fingers, motioning for Reed to continue.

  “First,” Reed said, “is there anybody new on the scene that might be trying to make a name for themselves?”

  “And second?” DMick asked.

  “Would there be any value in going after Aquino to do it?”

  Hands back to being tented up before him, DMick drew in a long breath. An audible inhalation that caused his chest to expand and his shoulders to rise, culminating with him asking, “What’s this about?”

  Even while taking the question no further, Reed knew exactly what the man meant. The underlying premise behind Reed’s inquiries and, ultimately, their visit.

  Information he wouldn’t generally hand out to the public, but in this instance, knew there was no chance of them getting answers without doing so.

  “Two days ago,” Reed said, “Aquino’s kid sister was killed. My partner and I are investigating the murder.”

  “Didn’t even know Aquino had a sister,” DMick replied. “You sure it was foul play?”

  “Certain,” Reed replied, the harsh visual of Cara Salem lined up on the steel table in the morgue flashing across his mind. “An assassination, if not an execution.”

  Folds of skin appeared around DMick’s left eye as he winced. “And you think it goes back to Aquino?”

  Aware that the dynamic was trending in the wrong direction, Reed doing more answering than asking, he continued to go with it. Clarifying questions he assumed were building to something. Holes that DMick was trying to fill in before positing any theories.

  Or so he hoped, things otherwise about to get fairly awkward.

  “Based on the victim herself and the manner of death, we are definitely considering it,” Reed replied.

  “What’s Aquino think?”

  “He’s plenty pissed about what happened, but doesn’t seem to think he’s connected,” Reed said. “Not after all this time.”

  Cutting his gaze to his two cohorts, DMick nodded. Studying them to the point his eyes glassed over, he fell silent for several moments, the entire room going quiet before eventually he began to speak.

  “As much as I hate to say I agree with Alex Aquino about anything, I have to admit, I think he’s right about this,” DMick began. “Five years ago, maybe, but now? Now, he’s more of a spook story. The kind of thing that goes around warning guys whenever someone starts to get too big.”

  Flicking his focus back to Reed, he said, “Don’t go drawing any unwanted attention, just look what happened to Aquino.”

  Pushing his hands apart, he spread them wide before him. “Now, don’t get me wrong here, that man certainly had battles - and if he’s about to go on the warpath with this, I for one would appreciate a heads up - but what you’re talking about, that’s not how things are done.”

  Touching on many of the same misgivings Reed had been having about throwing himself headlong into the Aquino angle to begin with, he merely nodded.

  “Not even by somebody new on the scene?” Reed asked. “Someone young, looking to make a big statement?”

  “Far as I know,” DMick replied, “there isn’t anybody like that moving guns right now. The market has shifted. That’s just not where the money is anymore.

  “Besides, even if it hadn’t, that’s just bad business, bringing down that kind of heat on yourself for no real reason.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  For Reed to say that he was disappointed would also require him stating that he had high expectations about the trip to Reynoldsburg to begin with. A concession he wasn’t willing to make for a variety of reasons, the foremost of those being a fact DMick himself admitted to a short time earlier.

  Alex Aquino was essentially old news. In an industry that shifted as fast and as often as things like guns, or drugs, or any other form of trafficking, somebody that had been out of the game three years wasn’t just gone.

  They were forgotten.

  The lone outlier being what DMick had also alluded to, Aquino remaining in the general lexicon only as a cautionary tale.

  The better term for what Reed felt would be frustration. A continuation of what he’d been feeling the last couple of days, as if the trips to see both Aquino and now DMick were just two more dead ends. Last resorts that he’d been hoping – perhaps even needing – to pan out that seemed to turn up as little as the previous stops.

  A path that just forty-eight hours earlier had seemed like a bombshell, now not completely rendered moot, but trending perilously close to it.

  Bringing the entire investigation to a state of either stalling or – even worse – waiting on the killer to strike again.

  “Apologies,” Lieutenant Schoen said as they sidled up to the curb in front of the CPD headquarters building. Flipping on his emergency lights, Reed left the engine still in gear, his foot resting on the brake. “I really thought he might be able to help us.”

  “In a way, he did,” Reed said, doing his best to spin things in front of Schoen. “He confirmed what Aquino said, which is that he didn’t believe it was his past catching up to him. One less thing to chase down.”

  The problem, Reed left unspoken, being that he hadn’t presented a viable alternative.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Schoen said. Lifting his brows in concession, he turned to glance toward the building rising beside them. The hulking behemoth shaped from stone and glass, the afternoon sun reflecting from its front façade.

  A place already preparing for the afternoon, a steady trickle of people exiting the trio of glass doors along the front.

  “And if nothing else,” Schoen added, “it got me out of a good chunk of meetings, which I always appreciate.”

  For a moment, Reed thought of adding that the trip to DMick’s also confirmed that the Gun Crimes Division was doing a good job. In the three years since Aquino was put away, there had been no serious moves to fill the void.

  A compliment he only avoided for fear of sounding patronizing after DMick also mentioned that the market had shifted, likely contributing a great deal.

  Settling for extending his hand across the middle console instead, Reed said, “Appreciate you taking the time to help us, Lieutenant.”

  “Absolutely,” Schoen replied, meeting Reed’s grasp. “Anything else I can do, let me know.”

  Releasing the shake, he popped open the passenger door and added, “Keep me posted on how this shakes out.”

  “Will do,” Reed said, letting the answer stand for both of Schoen’s requests.

  Offering a wave as the man departed, he waited until Schoen was halfway across the concrete sprawl, melding into the departing afternoon crowd, before flipping off the lights and easing away from the curb.

  A departure that allowed the agitation he’d been keeping tamped down since leaving the warehouse to rise to the fore. Bringing his teeth together, he clamped his jaw tight, feeling the tension travel the length of his neck and down into his shoulders.

  From where he was sitting, it was difficult to take anything positive at all away from the entire day. The previous couple even, if he was being honest.

  Outside of the information Jim Bob had shared regarding the round that was used and the admission from Aquino that he’d called in the Oxiles twins currently sitting at the Gallipolis Police Department, it was difficult not to feel like they’d spent an enormous amount of time spinning their wheels.

  An ongoing process of elimination that wasn’t just winnowing things down, but wiping out the entire list, leaving their options for next steps at just a scant few.

  Items that he was even less enthused about than many he’d already attempted.

  Fighting to wrap his mind around all that had transpired, Reed operated the sedan through little more than muscle memory. A series of turns and straightaways he had made dozens of times before, barely needing to even glance to the world around him to know exactly where they were. />
  A familiar path that just a few days prior he was walking with Billie, almost wishing they could simply return to that same beat.

  Or even better, to the graveyard shift they’d been on before Governor Cowan decided to get involved a month before.

  Each successive thought managing to push the vitriol Reed felt higher, he pressed a little harder on the gas. Small nudges to their speed, the various storefronts and residences filing by in a blur. Dilapidated structures and derelict edifices, many in dire need of replacement, if not outright destruction.

  A chunk of town known as The Bottoms, a moniker many in local politics would claim stemmed from the site resting right along the Scioto River. A name that nearly every other person believed stemmed from a far more dubious meaning.

  A place just ten minutes and a couple of miles from the headquarters downtown in terms of time and distance, but radically different in every other possible way.

  Cutting through the heart of the 8th Precinct’s jurisdiction, Reed pulled up in front of the same three-story brick building that looked like a cross between a fire station and a schoolhouse. Entering the front end of the lot, he considered returning to the same visitor stall along the front they’d used a couple nights before. A spot right by the door, affording him and Billie a direct path inside and on to Captain Grimes’s office.

  An option that he pushed aside for the time being, not trusting his mood or the loose tangle of disparate information he was working with to sit down in front of the captain just yet. Instead, he rolled on past many of the dayshift vehicles still bunched up close to the building, heading toward the rear of the lot.

  A stall in the very back he’d used a couple of times before for similar purposes, most of it obscured by the shade of an overhanging oak tree.

  Easing to a stop, Reed twisted the ignition off and stepped out. Greeted by a faint breeze, he stood in place for a moment, letting it pass over his body, relishing the blessed reprieve from the humidity of the last couple of days, before turning and popping open the rear door as well.

  An opening Billie had been waiting for, hurtling herself out onto the lawn. A bolt of black fur sprinting in a tight circle across the space, Reed watching for only a moment before swinging the door shut and heading toward the trunk.

  Another opportunity for his partner to take food and water. A refueling stop for her with the added benefit of giving him a few extra minutes before heading inside. Time to sort through all that was happening. Calm his nerves in the wake of the most recent spike in irritation.

  A plan that was sound in theory, making it no further than Reed lifting the cover of the trunk before being interrupted by his phone coming to life on his hip. A persistent buzzing refusing to be ignored, even more so after he pulled it free and checked the name etched across the screen.

  “As soon as Billie finishes up out here, we’ll be right in,” Reed said in lieu of any sort of traditional greeting.

  An opening that took Captain Grimes a moment to decipher before replying, “Make it fast. There’s something you need to see.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Reed and Billie were only a few feet from the front door when it burst open to reveal a pair of officers exiting the building. Men that were just wrapping up a long shift and anxious to get home for the day, one already with his uniform shirt untucked, the other having gone the extra step of unbuttoning his.

  Beginning states of undress hinting at big plans for the evening.

  Or just signs of it having been a hellacious day and wanting to be anywhere else for the rest of it.

  Each barely beyond the reach of the doors swinging shut behind them, they came to a stop on the top step. Smiles tracing their features, they made no effort to go any further, content to wait as Reed and Billie approached.

  “Well now, if it isn’t the big-time state investigators themselves,” Wade McMichaels opened. “Back here gracing us with their presence.”

  Beside him, his partner Tommy Jacobs made a show of pretending to stuff the tail of his shirt back under his belt. “Dang it, had I known, I would have tried to clean up a little or something.”

  Despite the combination of lingering frustration and concern over whatever Grimes had just alluded to on the phone, Reed couldn’t help but smile. Slowing his pace, he climbed up just a single step, extending his hand before him.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said, reaching out and grasping McMichaels’s hand first. The taller of the two, he was clean shaven, lean to the point that nearly every muscle and tendon along his neck and forearm was visible. “If you guys had any idea what we’ve been through the last couple days, you’d be thankful to be here walking the beat.”

  Snorting loudly, McMichaels released the shake, followed in order by Jacobs.

  “Fifty bucks says you’re wrong,” Jacobs replied. A stark contrast to his partner in nearly every way, he carried several extra pounds on a frame that was a few inches shorter. A thin goatee framed his mouth, backdropped by an olive skin tone.

  Both younger than Reed by nearly a decade, they’d been together since just before he and Billie joined the 8th, paired up after completing their training.

  “Pretty sure I’d take that bet,” Reed said, “and that’s even without knowing whatever Grimes just called and said we needed to come see.”

  Squint lines formed around Jacobs eyes as he winced, releasing Reed’s grip and taking a step back. “Ooh, yeah, that’s not good.”

  “Yeah, you guys have fun with that,” McMichaels added, turning to the side as Reed drifted up another step, heading for the door.

  “Gee, thanks,” Reed replied. “Just don’t forget, you guys are our backup if things get ugly.”

  The two sides parting with a wave, Reed pushed through the front door, leading Billie across the bullpen area and into the administrative suite. A direct march without so much as a glance to either side, the relocation from the rear of the lot to the front visitor stalls and the brief encounter with the officers having already extended the time since Grimes called to five minutes.

  An expanse Reed didn’t want to grow any longer, each additional moment adding to the uncertainty he felt. The host of possibilities that could have been alluded to, none of them particularly good.

  Tapping at the frame of the open doorway, Reed barely paused at the threshold before stepping inside. Body craned to the side, he peered down the length of the narrow hallway toward Grimes’s desk.

  “Captain?”

  “Come in,” Grimes replied, his voice arriving just a moment before he came into view. Seated behind his desk, his head was turned toward the door, the rest of him pointed at the monitor beside him.

  Body language making it clear he’d been staring at it just a moment before, pulled away only by their arrival.

  “What’s going on?” Reed asked. Sliding over in front of his usual seat, he lowered himself onto the front edge of it.

  Making no effort to respond directly, Grimes instead reached out, grasping the side of the monitor. Rotating it in place atop his desk, he turned it for Reed to see, a web browser enlarged to fill the entire screen, most of that occupied by a video feed.

  Despite the sound on it being muted, Reed recognized instantly that it was a live news update. An onsite report from a field journalist dressed in jeans and a pullover, a microphone clutched tight before her. On the side of it was printed the emblem for one of the local stations, easily recognizable even if the young woman holding it was not.

  In the background, a two-story home of dark brick and expensive landscaping was alive with activity. Officers and criminalists filing in and out of the main entrance, separated from the reporter by multiple strings of yellow police tape.

  “Shit,” Reed muttered. “What happened?”

  “Shooting,” Grimes said. “Maybe an hour ago.”

  “Where?”

  “Newark.”

  His gaze fixed on the screen, Reed stared at the visual, watching the woman and the flurry of movemen
t behind her. A pose he maintained even as his thoughts shifted from the images to the information just shared, his vision blurring, reducing the news feed to little more than shapes and colors.

  “This come from the governor or Brandt?” Reed asked.

  “Neither,” Grimes said. “Something like this happens, it doesn’t take long for it to start making the rounds, especially after the media gets word.”

  Nodding slightly, Reed blinked several times. Pulling himself back into the room, he watched the screen another moment before turning his focus to Grimes.

  “And you think we’re about to get handed this one too?”

  “No,” Grimes replied. “I think you might already be working it.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  On the surface, none of the details correlated.

  Cara Salem was shot out in the country, down along the Ohio River, in a secluded spot miles from the edge of a tiny town. She was taken early in the day, when it was known that she would be home alone. A perfect situation that someone had hiked up into the hills and waited hours on before sprinting out to their waiting vehicle and disappearing.

  As yet, the particulars on the newest incident were scant – the victim not even identified - though from what Reed had surmised, the shooting took place in the middle of the afternoon, the target residing in a small housing development. A place with plenty of people and activity not far from downtown Newark, a town of decent size just a half hour east of the sprawling metropolis of Columbus.

  Differences that were profound enough to give Reed pause, marking not just slight alterations from the case he was working but a radical shift in approach entirely.

  A change in scope so massive it would almost have to be intentional.

  For all of that, though, Reed knew instantly why Grimes had thought to call him. A niggling feeling that he also felt almost right away, making it no further than just ninety seconds of turning on the sound and listening to the young woman give a recap of what happened before coming to the same conclusion.