The Promisor: A Suspense Thriller

by Dustin Stevens

  Extending his Glock in both hands before him, he paused just an instant for Billie to come diving out of the vehicle behind him.

  “Brooks Reese!” Reed called, his voice rolling out over the open ground. Easily carrying across the tiny graveyard, it passed over the tips of the cornstalks lining it, disappearing into the darkness beyond.

  His gaze fixed on the man struggling to pull himself forward, Reed heard as McKeon exited the vehicle nearby. Footsteps atop gravel before all sound disappeared, the detective from Newark stepping up onto the grass outside the fence lining the cemetery.

  A presence Reed trusted without glancing over, pulling his gaze away from Reese only long enough to check the position of the open gate before him. A small opening in the wrought iron barricade encircling the collection of headstones, just wide enough for Reed and Billie to pass through simultaneously.

  “Drop yourself flat to the ground and keep your hands where we can see them!”

  Ten feet away, Reese continued his trek as if he hadn’t heard a word Reed said. Limbs splayed out wide, he kept his face raised toward the two tombstones in the back corner of the plot. An oversized slab of marble made for two and a smaller one right beside it.

  Both with the family surname emblazoned across them, black letters carved into a pale background.

  Making no effort to even glance to the detectives, Reese continued on, the entire time muttering something to himself. Words too low for Reed to make out as he swung himself out to the side of the man in an arc.

  An ongoing soundtrack of mumblings Reed didn’t much care about, his full attention on bringing down the man before him. The one who had caused so much strife over the last few days.

  Legs bent at the knee, Reed’s body was lowered into a crouch. Weapon held at arm’s length and held in a combat grip, with his finger on the trigger, every muscle was pulled taut, his body heat rising with each sideways step he took.

  Sweat that seeped from his pores, mixing with the last bits of moisture remaining from his dive into the Wilde’s pool.

  By his side, Billie kept a matching pace. Body lowered into a crouch as well, she stood poised, ready for any word from her partner.

  A few feet away, McKeon slipped in through the gate, circling out wide to the other side. Together, the two sides formed pincers, converging on Reese.

  A man that still seemed oblivious to their presence. Even as they continued to come closer, his focus remained on the grave markers before him.

  An ongoing attempt to get to them, despite it being clear his body was giving out. Effects from the wounds plainly visible on his back, the pale cloth of his shirt stained a sanguineous hue.

  Blood loss hinting at severe internal injury.

  Same for the wet and slurred pronunciation of the endless string of words spilling forth.

  “I did it,” he managed, the first words Reed could clearly understand. A small phrase just becoming audible as Reed cut the gap between them to a couple of feet. “I...kept...”

  Taking all he could muster to continue working forward, the words fell away, cut short by a rasping cough. A wet wheeze that further signaled his faculties were giving out, the damage he sustained earlier getting to him.

  What Reed had expected upon arrival, he couldn’t quite say. Even knowing the man had suffered multiple gunshot wounds earlier, he expected something closely resembling the heinous bastard who had cut down Cara Salem and Avery Lawson. The one who had fired on Terrance Benedict and marched directly into the Wilde home.

  The villain who had rigged his front gate to blast Reed and set loose trained pit bulls on Billie.

  Not this. Not a man reaching out, looking for finality, as if what he had done was some noble quest. Absolution for all the destruction he wrought in the name of what he perceived to be some sort of greater good.

  “Promise...” Reese sputtered, his strength finally giving out. Unable to go any further, he dropped to his chest. A pose he held for a moment before extending a hand, reaching one final time for the headstone of his wife just a couple of feet away.

  An ending Reed refused to allow the man.

  Again recalling the sights of those previous scenes, the sorrow gripping those left behind, even the pain enveloping him and the fresh sutures folded into Billie’s fur, he took two long strides forward. Steps made with the Glock still trained before him, covering any remaining distant between him and his adversary.

  A placement putting him into position to plant his foot between Reese’s outstretched fingers and the smooth marble.

  An effective blockade, keeping the man from completing his dying effort.

  “No, you didn’t,” Reed said, crouching down to peer directly into the face of the man he’d been chasing all week. “You didn’t get Terrance Benedict. You didn’t get Lizzy Wilde.

  “And you damned sure didn’t get me or my partner.”

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  The press conference took eighteen hours to pull together. A length of time that Governor Cowan claimed was to ensure that Jonathan Wilde and Officer Nate Davenport – the young man shot outside of the Benedict house – would both be pulling through, though Reed suspected it was more so that he could gather together the representatives of every last law enforcement agency that had helped on the case in the preceding days.

  A collection that numbered nearly a dozen in total, the expressions the various participants wore including the beaming elation of Gallipolis Chief of Police Liam Scott, no doubt already planning how to tie the incident to his next reelection campaign. The neutral resignation of Lieutenant Sam Schoen, having been around enough bureaucracy in his day to know how such things went. The stoic indifference of Sergeant Hank Ellis, standing with his hands clasped before him, accepting his fate in silence.

  Even the open loathing of Gallia County Sheriff Valerie Meigs, the woman tucked in along the side, making it quite clear that she would much rather be anywhere else in the world.

  A swell of people stretched the breadth of the stage, up to and including Officers Jacobs and McMichaels, along with Captain Grimes hiding in the back.

  “Some day you’ll have to tell me how exactly you managed to get Grimes to agree to do this,” Reed said.

  Seated in the same visitor chair he’d used a couple of times earlier in the week, Reed watched the proceedings with Billie on the floor by his feet. Turned to the side, his gaze was locked on the monitor resting atop Chief Eleanor Brandt’s desk, the press conference taking place just a few short blocks away on the capitol front steps enlarged to fill it.

  “I wouldn’t exactly say he agreed,” Brandt replied. “But the governor’s office was adamant that some ranking member of the CPD had to be present.”

  Knowing there was more to the explanation, Reed turned his attention away from the monitor. Arching an eyebrow, he left the underlying question unasked, remaining there for several seconds until Brandt eventually glanced his way.

  “So I took a page out of your playbook,” Brandt replied. “Told them after recent events, people could know about his newly created program with the BCI, but it was probably better to keep the faces of certain key players hidden.”

  The reasoning wasn’t exactly what Reed had used to dodge the gathering, though it was a fairly decent facsimile of it. A valid enough excuse to duck out of both the unwanted pageantry of the event and any extended interaction with the governor.

  Something that Reed wouldn’t go as far as to say was worse than taking another shotgun blast at short range, but if pressed would have to admit the gap between the two was closer than anybody would probably like to admit.

  Especially now, with every part of him still aching from the abuse he took the day before. A state rendering his ability to smile and play the part preciously low.

  A series of pinpricks and blunt shots to various parts alerting him that he was already due for more ibuprofen.

  Perhaps even something a bit stronger the moment he left the chief’s office.

&n
bsp; Leaving it go with nothing more than a slight smirk and a nod of understanding, Reed shifted his gaze back to the screen.

  “Today, it is with great pride that I stand before you,” Cowan said. Perched atop a riser to appear taller than Reed knew his diminutive stature to be, he gripped the sides of the podium in either hand. A stance someone like him would think he should assume, trying his best to appear steadfast or imposing or whatever else.

  Voice raised to a timbre that was equally disingenuous, he continued, “For it is through the combined efforts of my office and the many great offices and organizations represented here with me that justice has been served.”

  Having heard all he needed to, Reed let his attention wander. His eyes glazed as he tuned out whatever self-aggrandizing claims the governor was making, focusing instead on the last couple of words that the man said. A catchphrase so many in his position liked to employ, despite it very rarely ever actually applying.

  Certainly, not in this instance.

  Given the better part of a day now to think of all that transpired, it was hard for Reed to imagine anybody connected to the matter feeling like justice had been served. Not Harrison Salem or Gillian Lawson, forced to go on without someone they loved. Not the Benedicts or Wildes, trying to cope with the lingering trauma of what they endured.

  A single tragedy in the form of Adley Reese’s death compounded many times over, every last person that was pulled into its orbit now worse off for it.

  With the possible exception of the governor, preening before the cameras.

  “Still think it was a setup?”

  Deep in thought, it took a moment for the question to resonate. Words that pulled Reed back to the surface, the screen before him returning to focus as he rotated his gaze over to Brandt.

  “What’s that?” he asked, his brows rising.

  “This case,” Brandt said. “You came here the other day asking if I thought the governor knew about Aquino. If it was all a setup.”

  Grunting softly, Reed dipped his chin in understanding. An acknowledgement of the question he let linger for a moment as he thought on his response, the whirlwind of the last day having pushed the notion from mind.

  One he considered anew before eventually replying, “No. I think Aquino just ended up being an odd coincidence.”

  Flicking his gaze toward the screen, he said, “But I do have a feeling this is what we can expect moving forward. Any chance he has to call the press and stand behind a microphone, he’s going to take it.”

  “Probably,” Brandt agreed. “Almost definitely, even.”

  Letting one corner of his mouth lift slightly, Reed extended a hand beside him. Careful to avoid any sutures that might be lining Billie’s neck, he reached toward the area that had been protected by her vest, placing his hand atop her spine.

  A touch that caused her ears to twitch slightly, the day after not hitting her quite as hard as himself, but still ebbing away some of her usual energy.

  “Aside from that though,” Brandt added, “what did you think of this first outing?”

  Matching the chief’s gaze for just a moment, Reed shifted his focus to the oversized windows forming the bulk of the two outer walls of the office. Staring out, he peered into the distance, watching the midday sun dance off the river nearby.

  That very question, he’d asked himself just the night before. An inquiry that came to him in the hours before dawn when he wasn’t able to find sleep. His mind refusing to slow down after the events at the Wilde house and at the small graveyard, he had eventually sprawled out on the kitchen floor by his partner’s side.

  His turn to sit awake at night, watching over her, making sure she was okay. A post he maintained while staring up at the shadows lining the ceiling, rolling around everything the week had held.

  The couple of months before that, as well.

  There was no way to deny that most of what had gone down was a long way from what he or Billie had wanted. A tumultuous stretch that began with them essentially being penalized for being effective at their jobs. An unwarranted punishment that had caused many sleepless nights and unending frustration.

  At the same time, for all the aggravation and annoyance that had been caused by the clunky handling of the situation, it was almost impossible to deny that they were back to doing what they were good at. What they were meant to do.

  During just that swath of time alone, they’d brought Riley’s killer to justice. They’d found and saved Serena Gipson from a fate Reed could only guess at.

  They’d caught Brooks Reese before he could harm even more people than he already did, an eventuality far worse for a great many people than whatever Reed and his partner had just been through.

  A mere sampling of what they would hopefully be able to do moving forward.

  “You know,” Reed said, his gaze still averted as he began to speak, “for as bad as things might have seemed there for a while, it could be a hell of a lot worse.”

  Flicking his focus over to Brandt, he paused, trying to figure out the best way to summarize the various thoughts he’d had while resting on the kitchen floorboards. Scads of different things ranging from understanding the lengths she’d gone to in helping them to appreciating the unique role that had now been carved out and the good they might be able to do from it.

  A host of different thoughts that, ultimately, he conveyed in the best way he knew how.

  “Thank you.”

  Epilogue

  “I wanted so badly for it to be about Alex, to the point I even questioned your investigative technique, and it turned out it wasn’t because of him at all.

  “It was because of me.”

  It wasn’t simply the words Harrison Salem used that resonated with Reed, stuck in his head since leaving the man’s home more than two hours earlier. It was the pure emotion that underscored them. The palpable agony that seemed to hang from each syllable, hinting at a grieving process that would be more difficult for him than for most.

  A form of solitary confinement much, much worse than anything that might occur in one of the neighboring buildings from where Reed now found himself. Guilt there would be no way to ever assuage, logical reasoning such as pointing out Harrison’s former employment had nothing to do with his wife’s death sure to be brushed aside.

  Even more so, the usual pithy platitudes that so many liked to lob at people in his position.

  Standing inside the same interrogation room he had been in twice earlier in the week, Reed rolled the interaction through his mind. Twice through he replayed it while waiting with a shoulder pressed into the wall. An upright position that was much kinder on his battered torso with Billie by his side, his gaze aimed at the polished concrete floor before him.

  A pose he maintained even as the door on the far wall opened, the metal hinges groaning loudly, and Alex Aquino was led in.

  Tracking the man’s movement by the sound of his shackles jangling, Reed waited as the guards unfastened his cuffs from the chain around his waist and attached them to the ring rising from the center of the table. Further still as they retreated from the room, remaining perfectly motionless until the last faint bits of the reverberation from the metal door swinging closed faded from the air.

  Only then did he push aside the encounter with Harrison from earlier. The conversation before that with Sheriff Valerie Meigs, stopping by briefly on his way to Salem’s house. Even the texts he received from Serena earlier and the promise he’d made to check in later in the day, once they made it back home.

  All of that put at arm’s length for the time being, Reed placed his focus on the one final task he needed to perform before wrapping the Reese case for good.

  Lifting his gaze, Reed stared at the man before him. The one he had met for the first time just days before, putting a face to a name he had heard many times over the years.

  A face that appeared to have finally felt the effects of prison, aging dramatically in a period measuring less than a week in length.

/>   A trait Reed imagined he and Billie both shared with the man, the events of recent days extracting a heavy toll.

  “You here because you need more information, or because you found the guy?” Aquino asked, his voice managing to sound hollow without trending all the way to detached.

  Making no effort to come closer, his body staying pressed to the wall, Reed replied, “We got him.”

  Dipping his chin just slightly, Aquino asked, “Meaning you caught him, or you did like I told you?”

  Knowing it would be the next question in order, Reed replied, “He’s dead.”

  An answer that wasn’t exactly a response to what was asked, though managed the same outcome.

  “Good,” Aquino replied, lowering his chin a second time and turning to stare straight ahead. “Nobody messes with my girl.”

  Shifting his gaze away from the man before him, Reed let his focus settle on Billie by his feet. Narrowing his eyes, he peered past her ears standing tall atop her head to the thin lines carved through her fur.

  Pale strips lined with stitches, clear aftereffects of her battle with the pit bulls at Reese’s place.

  Wounds sustained in the act of protecting him.

  “Mine either.”

  Turn the page for a sneak peak of Friendly Fire, Hawk Tate Series book 7.

  Sneak Peek

  Decisions

  The number of advantages he had on me were numerous. With most of his physique on display beneath the slacks and black ribbed tank top he wore, it was clear he outweighed me by the better part of forty pounds. Striated muscle mass that clung to his oversized bone structure, making the weapon in his massive grip look tiny by comparison.