by James Hunt
Grant frowned. “Are you feeling under the weather too, Judge?”
Brockwater fixed Grant with an accusing glare. “And who are you? I didn’t see your badge.”
Mocks jumped in before Grant answered. “He’s a consultant helping with the case. Do you mind if we take a look around?”
Brockwater maintained his glare at Grant, but finally acquiesced. “Keep it quiet. My son is sleeping upstairs.”
The judge’s house was even more immaculate on the inside than it was on the outside. Marble floor, solid oak furnishings, the air itself smelled like it was subtracting money from Grant’s bank account with every breath.
Grant and Mocks searched the first floor, checking rooms and the egress points, finding no indications of forced entry. The windows were a concern. Dennis’s weapon of choice was a .308 Winchester rifle, usually supplemented with a mounted scope. Should the windows remain open from either the front or the back, he could easily take the judge or his son out without stepping foot onto the property.
Grant turned from the window and met Mocks back in the foyer and shook his head.
“Right, well, everything looks quiet.” Mocks handed Brockwater her card. “I have a unit outside watching the house. If you’d like, I can have officers sit with you inside as well.”
Brockwater stared at the card that Mocks had given him, his face erupting in a series of micro-twitches that could have been the cause of fear, or anger, or grief, or any combination of the three. But all of it told Grant that Brockwater wasn’t giving them the whole story.
“If anything comes up, please, call me,” Mocks said, heading toward the door. “In the meantime, I’d suggest keeping both you and your son in the house.”
Grant followed her to the door, his back to the judge.
“I remember you now,” Brockwater said.
Mocks stopped in the doorway, turning around in the same motion that Grant did.
“You were a younger man back then,” Brockwater said. “You’re the one who arrested Pullman the first time. You’re Chase Grant.”
Grant nodded, and Brockwater crossed the marble flooring of the foyer, stopping within inches of Grant.
“I can’t believe they still keep you in the loop.” Brockwater’s gaze bore into Grant like a laser. “You know I knew Judge Sonya. You remember her, don’t you?”
Grant remained silent.
“She was the one who handled your case after that debacle with the human trafficking incident,” Brockwater said, continuing in Grant’s silence. “Your negligence cost the lives of dozens of innocent women.” He narrowed his eyes, which filled with contempt. “I told Sonya to throw everything she could within reason of the law at you. I was disappointed to find out that she didn’t. And now here you are, bringing more violence to our city.” He leaned closer, jaw clenched in anger. “I will not have you put my boy in danger. I will not let him become another one of your casualties.”
Mocks gently approached and grabbed Grant’s arm, but he didn’t move. Ever since his dismissal from the department, Grant had been forced to watch people stare at him like a common criminal. But they didn’t know about the nightmares that kept him awake. They didn’t know the guilt that flooded through his veins.
“Judge, Pullman is out for blood. Mine, yours, anyone that he can get his hands on. We’re both in the crosshairs. And the only way either of us are going to make it out alive is if we work together.” Grant stood his ground despite the judge’s hard eye staring down upon him. “So, if there is something that you’re not telling me, then I suggest you speak up. Right now. Before it’s too late.”
Brockwater lifted his chin, staring down at Grant the way he must have done to the thousands of criminals he’d sentenced over the course of his career from high upon his throne of justice. “Get out of my house.”
Grant deflated.
“Thank you for your time, Judge.” Mocks pulled Grant out of the door and swung the heavy oak door shut.
Mocks opened the driver side door of her Vic, but then paused before she climbed inside. “You smell that too?”
Grant nodded. “He’s hiding something.”
“Hiding?” Mocks asked. “The man’s terrified. He was lucky his kid wasn’t on that bus.”
Grant’s gaze lingered on the house, and he thought again of the meticulous man who had them all on the edge of their seats. It was rare he made a mistake. “I’m not so sure it was luck.”
27
Brockwater turned the lock on his front door, and the mechanism thudded its proclamation of security. He then stepped to the window on the left side of the door and watched the lieutenant and Chase Grant leave.
His heart was pounding a mile a minute, and he spun around, clutching his chest, his breathing labored as he wiped the sweat from his face. He shut his eyes, controlling his breathing, and the tightness in his chest relaxed.
When Brockwater opened his eyes again, he expected to wake up in his bed and find that this perpetual nightmare had ended. But it didn’t. He glanced upstairs and fought back tears. He couldn’t break down now. Not yet. His son’s life depended on it.
Heading to the second floor, Brockwater gripped the railing of the staircase to keep himself upright, taking it one step at a time, both metaphorically and physically.
At the top of the stairs, he followed the narrow hallway to his son’s bedroom. The door was cracked open, and Brockwater opened it as softly as he could. Edward lay in his bed, the covers pulled up to his chest, sound asleep.
Brockwater floated like a ghost through the room, touching nothing but the floor, his footsteps soundless as he sat on the edge of the bed.
After his wife had passed, Brockwater had trouble sleeping. During those long nights of insomnia, he would come into Eddy’s room and sit right here, just like this, and watch him sleep, staring at the angelic face of innocence, which reminded Brockwater that the sun would rise tomorrow and a new day would begin.
The judge brushed Eddy’s dirty blond bangs off his forehead, the color inherited from his mother. He also had her eyes and calm demeanor. Watching him was like seeing his wife again.
“I’m sorry, son.” He cried and gently caressed Eddy’s cheek. “I’m so sorry.”
A soft groan from the closet door alerted Brockwater to the man’s presence. The hair on his arms and neck pricked upward as the shadow of evil moved closer.
“They said they were leaving a unit to keep an eye on the house.” Brockwater turned, wiping his eyes. “I thought it would look suspicious if I turned them down.”
Dennis adjusted his grip on the pistol. “If you had said something I didn’t like, then you would have come upstairs to a bloody mess.” He walked toward Eddy, standing on the other side of the bed. “Now, it’s time for you to hold up your end of the bargain.” Dennis looked to Brockwater and then gestured toward the door. “Run along now, Judge.”
The mattress squeaked as Brockwater stood. He stopped and turned back at the door when he realized that Dennis wasn’t following him.
“Oh, I’ll stay right here,” Dennis said. “I’m not worried about you doing anything stupid.” He sat down on the bed next to Eddy and then pointed the gun at his son’s head, raising his pair of thin blond eyebrows. “Should I be worried, Judge?”
“No.” Brockwater’s voice cracked. “Don’t be worried.”
Brockwater moved swiftly down the stairs, not wanting to leave that psychopath alone with his son for very long. In his study, he logged into his computer and accessed the files from the state’s judicial database and hit print. Every sheet that fell into the tray flooded his consciousness with more guilt.
Once all of the files had been printed, Brockwater returned upstairs to his son’s bedroom and found Dennis still sitting on Eddy’s bed, watching him sleep in the exact same spot his mother would watch him sleep. But Tammy was dead, and some demon from hell now sat in her place.
“You’re a good father, Judge.” Dennis rested the pistol on his thig
h. “A much better one than mine.”
Brockwater walked to the edge of the bed and extended the files to Dennis. “It’s all here. Now go.”
But Dennis ignored the papers and scratched the back of his head, sighing, his hand finally off the pistol. “He never understood me, but the feeling was mutual.” He picked up the gun, his pale fingers a stark contrast from the black carbonite handle. “He was as foreign to me as a dead language.” He raised his eyebrows, those dark eyes growing wider and bigger with wonder, and then finally looked to Brockwater. “I was cursed with a gift, Judge. If you could only see what flashes through my mind. It’s maddening. Loud. Dangerous.” He narrowed his eyes into horizontal coin slits. “People don’t have to fear me. You don’t have to fear me. Because I’m here to make the world better. And it won’t be long until I’ve accomplished that mission. Because that’s what we’re all trying to do, isn’t it? Find the end of the rainbow?”
Brockwater dropped the files on the bed. “Whatever concept of life you’ve contrived in that web of a head of yours wouldn’t be anything close to the truth. You can’t understand life because you don’t appreciate it, and you sure as shit don’t value it.”
Dennis stood. He gestured to the papers. “Go ahead and pick those up and put them in your car. Then pull it into the garage, come back up, and grab your son.”
Brockwater grew lightheaded. “Why?”
Dennis smiled. “We’re going to have ourselves a little reunion.”
28
The two chairs on the opposite side of her station manager’s desk remained empty because Lacey was too wired to stand still, let alone sit. She kept her arms crossed over her chest, pulling her blazer closed, studying her boss’s facial reactions as he reviewed the documents that she’d put together. His silence was maddening.
Dustin Schwartz was a shrewd man, and always wore clothes that were too big for him. Instead of a man in his late thirties, he looked more like a kid pretending to be a grown up. “And you said this came from your source in the mayor’s office?”
Lacey knew the truth would only cause her to have to jump through more hoops, so instead she answered with a very convincing ‘yes.’ But the truth was that after she received the package at her apartment, she immediately called her source in the mayor’s office to confirm its authenticity, which they did, but her source had denied sending such a package.
Dustin removed the glasses from the tip of his nose and dropped them next to the documents. “Most of these details have already been hashed over before, Lacey.”
Lacey pointed at the computer. “But you saw the video. You saw what he did.”
“I saw what someone did.” Dustin corrected her. “There was no visual or auditory confirmation that the person who pressed that button was Chase Grant. And there is also no evidence that the two videos correspond to one another.”
Lacey flapped her arms in exasperation. “Oh, come on, Dustin!” She paced back and forth in front of his desk with the intensity of a caged tiger. “Look at the fucking timeline I put together.” She snatched the paper off his desk and flipped it around so he could see her point at it. “Reports of an explosion in Seattle’s abandoned warehouse district where Mary Sullivan’s remains were found match up within minutes of Seattle PD’s report of the raid of that cabin in Deville!” She tossed the paper and it floated back onto his desk. “He pressed a button. An explosion went off. What more proof do you need?”
“Visual confirmation that the man wearing the body cam is in fact Chase Grant would be nice.” Dustin gestured to the documents. “The report you bring up doesn’t name the officer that was the first to enter the cabin. It just says that the building was ‘breached’ and that the suspect was taken into custody.” He raised his thin eyebrows that looked like they’d been plucked to perfection.
Lacey pressed her finger against Grant’s file. “You’ve read his file, hell, you reported on some of those incidents yourself. Grant has repeatedly shown a pattern of abuse of power that stretches for a decade. And then the Seattle PD uses him as a consultant after his dismissal from the department where his negligence led to the deaths of all of those women?” She flipped to a page that pointed out his former partner. “Susan Mullocks is now a lieutenant within the Seattle Police Department. She is a recovering narcotics addict and was with Grant for nearly all those incidents. Hell, she was the one who hired him as a consultant after her promotion to lieutenant! It’s nepotism running rampant!” She hunched forward, leaning over the desk, her bosom nearly popping out of her blouse. “I’ve already confirmed with my source that Chase Grant is assisting on this case. And I think the citizens of this city should know exactly who their authority figures are using to find Dennis Pullman.”
Dustin held up his hands. “Okay. Let’s just say for a second that the person in that video is Chase Grant. Why should we pursue this?”
“Are you fucking kidding me!?” Lacey lifted her arms above her head. “Chase Grant killed Mary Sullivan. Last I checked, that was cause for pressing charges of manslaughter.” She pointed both hands at the computer screen. “The police chief mentioned nothing in his press briefing about any irregularities in Mary Sullivan’s death, making people believe that it was the suspect they arrested, Barry Finster, who killed her. But we have video evidence that directly contradicts what he has told the public, which means they didn’t want this video to come out, which means they’re covering up the truth about how that woman died! Don’t you think her family should know what happened?”
“The story right now is finding Pullman.” Dustin remained calm as he pressed the tips of his fingers together. “There’s no guarantee that this story about Grant will catch.”
Lacey had waited for Dustin to pull his pragmatic bullshit, and it was here she finally sat down, pretending for a moment that the pair were actually equals, because while Dustin may have more experience, Lacey knew that she was the better reporter. “Prison records show that Chase Grant visited Pullman up at Washington State Penitentiary. Which means he’s been a part of this since the beginning. Pullman’s very escape can be tied to Grant being involved, and we build upon that by using everything about his past. The deaths of the girls from that human trafficking sting he was a part of, the deaths of those kiddie porn pushers, the case from two years ago where during an FBI investigation, he raided a facility and killed another handful of European Mafioso, not to mention the man he nearly beat to death with his bare hands.”
“The man who killed his wife,” Dustin said.
“My point is, we have more than one loose cannon running amuck in our city.” Lacey flipped open the copy of Grant’s file and pointed to his picture. “His body count is even higher than Pullman’s.” She snapped the file shut and raised her voice before Dustin could begin a rebuttal. “And I know he was killing bad guys. But what if Chase Grant got a taste for blood, and now he can’t get rid of it?”
Lacey smacked her palm on the desk and then leaned back into her chair. She’d given Dustin everything she could, and she studied his face, unsure of which way his verdict would lean.
Deep down she knew that a lot of this was conjecture, and the way she’d spun it was more like a pitch for a movie script to some production company. But she knew that this would catch the public’s eye, and it would spread like wildfire. This was the kind of story that brought enough exposure to catapult her to the big leagues.
Dustin ground his teeth, tapping his finger on his desk. He shifted his gaze between the computer screen and the file a few times before finally landing on Lacey. “And you’re ready for the consequences of this once it’s public?”
“Yes,” Lacey answered quickly.
“Are you sure? Because this story will directly contradict what the Chief of Police just told this city, and you can be damned sure that Hofster is going to fight you tooth and nail.” Dustin leaned forward. This time, it was his turn to scare her and test her conviction. “You really want to go up against the entire police force?
Because attacking one of them is like attacking all of them. They take care of their own.”
“I understand the risks,” Lacey answered. “But Chase Grant isn’t a cop anymore. He was dismissed from the department. And he should be locked up in jail along with Pullman for what he did to Mary Sullivan.”
Dustin repressed a smile and shook his head as he reached for a tennis ball on his desk and started squeezing it. “I’ve met people with ice in their veins, but goddamn.” He chuckled. “All right, Lacey. We’ll run it at the top of the hour at noon.”
Lacey stood, collecting the documents off of Dustin’s desk. “Thank you.” She piled everything into the box, and when she stepped out of her boss’s office, she wanted to scream with victory. But she held it in, and her cheeks turned a bright red, burning through her make-up as she quickly headed back to her desk.
If the story was going to break at noon, then she only had an hour to prepare a package to send to the control room. And while she probably should have felt some kind of remorse over what this story would do to the people around Chase Grant, she didn’t. This was her big break, the one she’d been waiting for to catapult her into the top of her field. It was a dog eat dog world, and if she had to step on a few necks on the way to the top, then so be it. Better them than her.
29
Once back at the precinct, both Grant and Mocks returned to the conference room where Mocks had her team diligently working on theories of where, or what, Dennis Pullman was currently doing.
Detective Lane, Mocks’s right hand in Missing Persons, was busy combing through the crime scene photos of the bus driver and following up on the small transponder that was found near the body.
“Got a report back on that transponder.” Lane leaned back, hands folded over his stomach and the light blue button-up he wore, his underarms darkened with sweat. “It’s the same make and model as the transponders we found in Barry Finster’s house. But because the receiver hasn’t been turned on, we can’t trace the signal.” He looked up at Grant. “You think he’s building another bomb?”