Home Fire: A Suspense Thriller (A Hawk Tate Novel Book 5)

by Dustin Stevens

  “Ronnie, you’ve got to get me to the hospital. Look at this blood. I’m already starting to feel faint.”

  Again, Ronell thought of the things he’d like to do to Joey right now, about how much this scene could have messed up their plans. This accelerated things more than he was ready for. It meant he needed to go ahead and take the girl over. Was going to have to explain what had happened and why her face had been messed up.

  If he had his way, feeling faint would be the least of Joey’s concerns.

  “No hospital,” Ronell said. “You go in there with a stab wound, they’re going to start asking questions.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Interacting with people like the S-2 was the price of being in the particular line of work that John Kuntzman was in. While many of the buyers that he operated on behalf of came from the upper crust of societies the world over – men just like Sirr Asai - none would ever stoop to being on the supply end of things.

  Buying a young child and whisking them away, destroying families, putting a human being through all sorts of hell, were all perfectly acceptable. It just had to be done in a controlled environment, where the veneer of refinement was in the air.

  To borrow a phrase that was often used back home in Texas - they wanted the steak, but they didn’t want to meet the cow.

  That part of the operation was left to places like the warehouse Kuntzman was now sitting in front of. The low-end of the business model, where the real work was done, where people like Elyse Denman were snatched and turned over.

  Lowering the tinted window on his truck, Kuntzman leaned out a few inches, making sure the camera on the side of the building got a clear view of him. Careful to hide his impatience at the gesture, he waited until his face was recognized and the door before him started to rise before retreating back into his seat and rolling the window up.

  The practice was an unnecessary one, just another example of the excessive posturing that seemed to accompany groups such as this. While the routine of using cameras and checking whoever rolled up might look impressive to prospects, in reality, it was nothing more than a sham.

  From the outside, there was absolutely nothing remarkable about the warehouse. No chance that any stranger rolling past would just happen to think there might be a chop shop or illicit drugs inside and decide to stop and take a peek.

  If someone showed up at this location, it was either a rival of the S-2 looking to start trouble or it was the police acting on a tip.

  In neither case would a camera or a thin sheet of corrugated metal do much to stop them from getting inside.

  Shaking his head slightly, Kuntzman waited for the door to rise. Once it was safely above the hood of his truck, he idled forward, coming to a stop inside what was essentially a concrete box. Enclosed on all sides, there was a plain metal door before him.

  All three walls were made of block. The floor and ceiling were brushed concrete, halogen lights illuminating everything much brighter than necessary.

  A faint buzzing could be heard in the air as Kuntzman slid out from the truck. Stepping around the front grille, he pounded twice on the door with the side of his fist.

  A moment later, it swung inward, a twenty-something with light brown skin and hair buzzed short holding it open. Gesturing to the side, he motioned for Kuntzman to enter before closing the door behind him.

  Not once did he speak.

  He never did.

  Nodding in thanks, Kuntzman followed the young man down an open corridor, his boot heels clicking against the floor. To either side, the concrete block that had been left plain inside the parking cell had been spray painted liberally, graffiti in shades of green and white covering every available inch.

  An eyesore in every way, Kuntzman kept his gaze locked straight ahead. Following the sound of rap music, he descended the hallway more than fifty yards before making an abrupt turn.

  The space Big Man occupied was an office in only the very loosest of terms. It had a desk, and it was where he conducted business.

  The similarities to the corner spread Kuntzman operated out of downtown ended there.

  Most of the place had been retrofitted into Big Man’s own personal chambers, an enormous bed occupying the far corner. As he stepped inside, Kuntzman could see a tangle of bare legs splayed across it, a mash of red satin sheets keeping the rest of the bodies from view.

  Beside the bed was a leather sectional sofa, the enormous piece comprising the rest of the rear wall.

  Along one side was a kitchenette with a pair of full-sized refrigerators and a counter overflowing with dishes and fast food trash.

  In total, the room was roughly the size of an average apartment. Without any internal walls, it looked enormous, extended more than thirty feet in either direction.

  The sole part of the spread that even hinted at being an actual office was the front left quadrant. There resided a solid wood desk painted black, a rolling chair behind it, a computer screen atop it.

  Opposite the desk sat a black loveseat against the wall, a pair of black chairs with stainless steel legs across from it.

  As Kuntzman entered, Big Man looked up from his spot on the loveseat, the item barely containing his bulk. Laboring to his feet, he extended a hand.

  “Kuntzman.”

  “Big Man,” Kuntzman said. Shifting his attention to the desk, he nodded to Big Man’s wiry sidekick, the one that would have been responsible for the written report that accompanied the video the day before. “Peanut.”

  The much smaller man nodded as well, making no effort to rise from his seat.

  Gesturing to the chair beside him, Big Man dropped back down onto the loveseat, the item moaning beneath his weight. “Wasn’t expecting you so early.”

  Settling himself down into the chair, Kuntzman straightened his sports coat, tugging on his lapels before lying them evenly across his chest. Removing his hat from his head, he balanced it across his knee.

  As he did so, he tried to ignore the smell of grease in the air, like French fries that had been left sitting out for days. He forced himself not to look at the prodigious stomach on Big Man thrust his way, tattoos that had been applied fifty pounds ago now distorted to the point of being illegible scrawled across it.

  “Wasn’t planning on it,” Kuntzman replied, “but I got a call last night that suggested it would be better if she was moved sooner rather than later.”

  He didn’t bother going into any further detail about who the call was from or the exact words that were shared. He and Big Man had been doing business together long enough that most things were just understood between them.

  Namely, that neither one asked or shared a single thing that wasn’t absolutely vital.

  “How much heat?” Big Man asked.

  “Not terrible,” Kuntzman said, “but enough.” Again, he left it there. “Where is the girl now?”

  “On her way,” Big Man replied.

  His eyes narrowing slightly, Kuntzman flicked a glance between the two men. “She’s not here?”

  Seeing the reaction, Big Man’s features shifted slightly as well, an unspoken message that he was not to be tested. Not in his own home. Definitely not in front of his men.

  “Told them to wait a bit,” he replied. “The car was still here, and I never keep two pieces of merchandise from the same place together at once.”

  The explanation was thin, at best, but Kuntzman knew better than to press. The relationship was productive, but it wasn’t friendly. Neither of the men before him, or the untold number right outside, would have any qualms about cutting him down where he sat.

  “Okay,” he said. “No problem. Like we said, I’m here early.”

  Chapter Forty

  I have never been someone that prefers to be reactive. One of the first lessons my father ever instilled in me was that it is almost always better to err on the side of being the aggressor. A lifelong army man, far too often he had seen the mistakes that could be made while sitting back and letting
someone else take the initiative.

  Unintended consequences. Working from somebody else’s designs. Having to play catch-up.

  Unfortunately, since getting the call from Amber, I’d had no other choice. I was in a city I didn’t know at all. I was searching for someone I cared about, but hadn’t seen in years, probably wouldn’t recognize if she walked right by me.

  And I was looking for an abductor that I didn’t have the slightest clue about.

  In total, it was a situation I loathed, every minute a heightened cocktail of adrenaline and aggravation.

  The instant Pally gave me the address in Belle Meade, that shifted. No longer was I left to concentrate on Elyse, pushing back guilt and images of my own daughter in my head. Instead, I had names and faces to focus on. I had a place to direct my anger, no longer needing to keep it tamped beneath the surface.

  Maybe, in the end, I might have to make an apology or two, but that was an infinitely better place to be than walking around having to ask permission.

  My first reaction after getting off the phone with him was to punch the address into the GPS mounted on the dash and head straight across town. Every part of me wanted to reverse directly out of the Church’s Chicken parking lot. Lean hard on the gas and go straight there, raise all kinds of hell when I arrived.

  And I would do that, but first I needed to take care of a few things first.

  Starting by leaving the cellphone sitting on my thigh, I punched in Amber’s number. Three rings later, it was snatched up, her voice lowered.

  “Hello?” she asked.

  She knew it was me. If my name wasn’t already in her phone, she would have recognized the digits as they popped up. There were only so many numbers with a Montana area code that would be calling her right now.

  The fact that she addressed me in the infinitive, without using my name, told me she was likely inside the hospital, unable to speak freely.

  Which was fine. I only needed a couple of quick answers.

  “Does the name Jamal Pierce mean anything to you?”

  There was a pause as she considered the question. “No.”

  I hadn’t thought it would, but I’d needed to be thorough. I had to make sure there was no chance that these were friends of hers, or that someone might be targeting the family.

  “How about a Sandra Bernstein?”

  Again, there was a pause. I could hear shoes squeaking against a tile floor as if she was relocating.

  When finally she spoke, her voice was a bit louder, an unmistakable edge present.

  “No. Why? What have you found?”

  To my right, the same pair of men that had entered earlier exited. Both held multiple sacks in one hand, the tops bunched together, sides bulging. In the other were sodas that looked to be a half-gallon minimum.

  Both had a look on their face that reminded me of a junkie getting their fix, the strain they displayed just minutes before gone.

  Neither even knew I existed, let alone that I had been sitting there since they arrived.

  “I don’t know yet,” I replied. It wasn’t entirely true, but I wasn’t about to give her false hope. Not when there was still far too much I didn’t know. “I’m on my way now to check.”

  “On your way where?” she asked.

  “Belle Meade,” I replied.

  “Is that where-“

  “Yes,” I replied, cutting her off so she didn’t have to say any more out loud than was necessary. “I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t about to break down her boyfriend’s door before I headed over.”

  “She doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Amber replied, “and even if she did...”

  I knew exactly what she meant. There was already no doubt about what I was going to do next. The call was more of a courtesy to give her a head’s up in case she knew the person I was about to go pay a visit.

  Either way, they had Elyse and they had shot Eric. What happened next wasn’t going to be pretty.

  “I’ll be in touch,” I said, my mind already working ahead to the next thing in order as I clicked off the line.

  Chapter Forty-One

  The drive to Belle Meade took just over twenty minutes. Had I been following all posted speed limits and driving in what most would call a completely safe manner, it would have taken over half an hour. Time I didn’t feel like I had.

  Time I knew Elyse didn’t have.

  Amber was right when she said that finding people was what I did best. Perhaps not anymore, but not that long ago, my FAST – Foreign-Deployed Advisory and Support – team and I were the best the DEA had at going into hostile environments and pulling out people that presented a direct threat to the country.

  It was painstaking, brutal, tedious, and often violent work. In the end, it had cost us all dearly, every one of us having left the Administration years earlier, but it had imparted in each of us certain abilities that would never leave.

  Never in any of those situations had I been looking for a kidnapping victim, but the details weren’t that much different. I had been successful then, and I would be successful now.

  That’s just the way it was.

  “In one quarter mile, take Exit 38 at Barstow Street.”

  Unlike the digital voice from the GPS on the dashboard, the one on my phone had a bit more of a bedside manner. Much more neutral in tone, the voice wasn’t designed to sound like a dominatrix from a 900 number, issuing commands as if holding a leather crop.

  Not that that was why I had opted for the phone instead of the GPS.

  The car I was in was a rental. At some point, it would need to be returned, and despite whatever lengths I may go to in trying to wipe the history from the device, there would always be some digital footprint of the places I’d typed in.

  For me, it would be impossible to gain access to. For someone like Pally, it would take just a couple of minutes.

  If anything were to happen in the next hour, or even the day ahead, I needed to be sure to keep my backtrail as clean as possible. That meant not leaving obvious markers behind.

  It was a lot easier to get rid of a cell phone than it was a rented GPS.

  The suburb of Belle Meade looked much like Hermitage and Antioch before it, only about twenty years older. Where the other two had seen a recent influx of new development dollars, this side of town still had a lived-in vibe to it.

  Fast food joints and gas stations were clustered tight to the freeway, but within a few blocks, they fell away. In their stead were elementary schools and local banks. Single-family homes filled in the spaces in between.

  “At the second traffic light, turn right onto Weston Street.”

  Sitting up higher behind the steering wheel, I rolled through the first traffic light. Hooking a hand between the front seats, I reached to the bench seat behind me, reaching into the plastic bag from the sporting goods store I had visited that morning. Rooting around, I felt my fingertips pass over what I was looking for, squeezing tight and pulling it toward me.

  The bat was designed for a child, making it ideal for what I needed. Shorter in stature, it was cut from solid aluminum, optimal for close quarters, easily hidden along a leg or the inside of my arm while on the move.

  Left bare, there was no flashy paint to attract attention, nothing at all that would catch the eye.

  Assuming, of course, that I wasn’t wielding it when someone happened to look over.

  Balancing it on the passenger seat, I placed the handle closest to me, easily grasped in an instant.

  Two blocks later, I was told to make a left. A black after that, one final right.

  With each turn, I moved a little further into suburbia. On either side were small lots with yards of dirt and weeds. Sitting in the driveways were rusted out cars from the eighties and nineties. Chain link fences separated some properties from their neighbors, small signs warning anybody walking past to beware of dogs.

  “Your destination is on the right.”

  A ripple passed through my chest, a single inhal
ation the sole sign that I had even registered what was said. Rotating my head a quarter turn to the side, I kept my speed constant, refusing the urge to turn and stare as I rolled past.

  The home looked like many of the others along the street, a single story tall, made entirely of brick. A door of dark wood stood in the center of it, offset by a pair of windows on either side, all four with blinds pulled shut. A concrete walk stretched up through the middle of a yard that was mostly dust, a thin row of junipers tucked up tight to the base of the house.

  All of that I noticed, processed, and dismissed in a matter of seconds. It fit with the look of the two guys in the picture Pally had sent. Certainly coincided with the appearance of the neighborhood around me.

  Instead, I focused my attention on the driveway. On the dented tan Honda that sat in the center of it, backed in so the nose was angled out toward the street.

  Seeing it, I felt my right hand clench, a physiological response that permeated every fiber of my being. On command, my senses sharpened, adrenaline seeping into my system. Recalling emotions I hadn’t felt but a couple of times in the preceding years, my fingers began to thrum against the steering wheel, my left knee rising and falling in a steady rhythm.

  This was why Amber had called me. Because certain things, once done enough, become a part of a man. Things like what I had done in the DEA.

  Things like what I was about to do now.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  The echo of my knock rang out through the house as I pounded on the front door with my left hand. Banging three times, I paused, hearing just the slightest sound of movement from within, before beating against the wood twice more and taking a half-step back.

  The head of the aluminum bat was planted in my right palm. Tucked up tight to my side, the length of it was pinned between my arm and my body, the tip of the handle tucked under the hem of my shirt sleeve.