by Ed James
He doesn’t want to kill me. And only five bullets. One left, still enough to kill me.
Mason stood so close that Holliday could smell his sweat.
Kick his ankles, kick his knees, kick his balls, overpower him.
Kill him, destroy his body, tear his limbs apart.
“You’ve got your answers.” Holliday stared into Mason’s dead eyes. “Please, you don’t need anything else from me. Give me back my daughter. Let me go.”
Something thumped down on the street. Loud.
Mason ran over to the window and peered out. “Shit.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Carter
Elisha pulled off the freeway, siren wailing, and passed two Priuses. She shot Carter a dark look. “What do you mean?”
“When I mentioned the name of that school, you freaked out.” Carter grabbed the door handle like his life depended on it. The way she was driving, it felt like it did. “What’s the story?”
“It’s probably nothing.” Elisha powered along the straight road, then slalomed around the corner.
Four Seattle PD cruisers surrounded a low-slung block of upmarket condos. Wide and low, two stories tall. Six uniformed cops crouched behind their vehicles, using them as shields.
Elisha screeched to a halt, the cabin filling with the stink of burning rubber.
Carter got out first, drawing his gun and crouching as he made his way to the nearest officer. “Have shots been fired?”
“Not since we got here. Not that I’ve heard, anyway.” Officer S. West shook his head, but kept his focus on the apartments. “Had a report of two shots in apartment 3312 at eighteen twenty hundred hours.” He waved over at the building, pointing at a window lit up in the evening sky. “Lopez and Ginty went inside a couple minutes ago. No word since.”
The apartment complex door hung open. Two cops inside, at risk, in danger. And Vance inside. Was Mason here too?
“Okay, stay here.” Carter squeezed through the gap between the cars and scooted over to the apartment block, keeping low. No movement inside the apartment. He pressed himself flat against the wall beside the door and sneaked a look. The carpeted interior was empty. He stopped outside the staircase door and waited for Elisha to join him. Got a nod from her, then he crouched low and pushed in at waist height, Elisha following at standing. Nobody.
He took a deep breath and took the stairs one at a time, careful to dampen the sound, keep it as quiet as possible. Up to the second floor, and he paused, his free hand held out to stop Elisha. No threatening sounds, just a low rumble of someone’s TV turned up too loud, the sort of person who thinks it’s okay to run a subwoofer in an apartment block.
He started climbing again, nice and slow. Up to the third floor, marked 3300—. He looked down the corridor, spotting 3310, 3311. Up ahead, the door to 3312 hung open.
Carter stepped over, gun drawn, and stood outside the door, waiting for Elisha to join him. He chanced a peek inside.
Two uniformed officers stood on either side of a couch. They stepped aside and showed a body, two bullet holes in his forehead.
Franklin Vance. Another dead end.
And no sign of his killers.
Chapter Forty-Five
Mason
Holliday is behind the wheel of Vance’s Cadillac, easing it along the freeway. If you looked in the car right now, you’d see two regular guys hanging out. Just not talking to each other. Maybe they’re at ease in each other’s company.
But I can see the cogs grinding behind his eyes. Every turn we take, every approaching car, he sees them as opportunities to take control. Hit it right, and the odds are in his favor.
A Nissan crumpling the passenger side, injuring me, him reaching for the gun, killing me before the car even stops spinning.
But me dying doesn’t equal him getting hold of Avery. And that’s what makes him stop. All that stops him from doing that.
“Take a right here.” I press the gun into Holliday’s side, my arm burning, sweat coursing down my back, sticking to the leather seat.
As he turns, the asshole keeps looking in the rearview, no doubt hoping the feds are following us.
Another look and the road behind is empty.
But still Senator Holliday hopes. Craven, pathetic, lost, like a small child. Like a small, scared child. Weak, frightened. Not brave like Jacob had been. His last action on this Earth trying to save his friend from—
Vance.
That filthy degenerate.
Jacob died trying to save his friend from that vermin.
That cockroach.
That human being. That twisted, evil, barbaric human being.
Someone who knew better, someone who knew precisely what he was doing, but who ignored it and abducted a child for money.
After what I’ve done today, I’m no saint, but at least I can say I’ve done it for the right reasons, if such a thing exists. I’m trying to find answers, trying to unravel what these monsters did to my boy.
The gun feels heavy. Someone else’s weapon, someone else’s bullets. But my revenge.
Vance died far too quick a death for what he did. I should’ve stretched it out, tortured him. One thing I’ve learned over the last year is there’s no heaven or hell, just the here and now. Vance isn’t being tortured by Satan for eternity, or even waiting in limbo. He’s gone. Dead. He can’t cause any more harm to anyone. Besides, there’s nowhere near enough time left in the universe to make him suffer enough for killing my boy.
Or for taking Faraj.
“Where now?” Holliday looks over at me, more determined than before.
I check the road ahead. Try to speak, but it catches in my throat. Feels like I’m going to cry. “Next left. Then pull over.”
He does, leaving the engine idling. “Killing and torturing for some documents and a video. Was it worth it?”
I swallow down the bitter taste of freedom after a year stuck inside this mental prison, looking for answers. “Of course it was. Two evil men have paid for their crimes. No court would ever convict them. Their lawyers and the corrupt politicians they’re in hock with would never let it get anywhere near that. But I’ve stopped them doing this again. And they would do it again, believe me. Again and again and again and again.”
Holliday looks at me, like he’s sizing me up, waiting to ask, but he doesn’t, just sits there.
“People like Harry Youngblood and Frank Vance, people like you as well. In your eyes, the rest of us stopped being people a long time ago. We became cannon fodder, ends to your means. Doesn’t matter who dies, does it? Collateral damage, or any number of euphemisms. But you’re all just small boys comparing dick sizes in a locker room. It’s all just a game to you.”
“I went to public school.”
I don’t speak. Just watch the long straight road for feds. They’ll be out in force now, looking for a man who has murdered twice.
Layla’s answers died with Harry Youngblood. I was going to take him alive, leave Holliday there, get Layla to let Avery go, but the stupid bastard got himself killed. Made me cross a line.
But he’s dead now. I won’t be able to make him feel the pain Layla or I have felt over the last year. And we’ll never get to the bottom of what happened, never find her son. Harry Youngblood will never truly suffer for the impact his greed has had on innocent people like me or Layla.
Holliday makes puppy-dog eyes at me. He knows he’s no use to me, thinks I’m going to kill him now.
I’ve been using Holliday as a chess piece, pushing him around the board, bending him to my will. What do I do with him now?
His son’s in the hospital, could even be dead. He’s suffered the trauma of knowing his kids have been abducted and, even worse, that there’s something he can do to save them.
But he’s also witnessed two murders, one accidental, the other very deliberate. And I kidnapped his kids. He’ll bring in the feds, help them find Avery and Layla.
“Stay quiet.” I get out the burner and hi
t dial.
Layla answers immediately, sounds out of breath. “What’s happened?”
“It’s over, Layla. I’ve got our answers.”
She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. “What.” A statement, not a question.
“You want to do this—”
“Tell me what happened to my son!”
So I do.
Cars whiz past us, pulled up just off the side of the freeway.
Layla’s breath comes slow, almost a whisper down the line. “Thank you.”
“I wish it was different. I wish it was better news.”
Even though I can’t see her, I can tell she’s processing it in that way she does, staring into space, frowning. “If the CIA have him, then it means he’s, I don’t know, somewhere. Right? Means he’s still out there. I need to find him.”
“I want to help.”
“You’re a wanted man. You need to go. Leave, now.”
Through all of this, I haven’t thought much about what to do next. I never expected to get any closure.
“Where can I go?”
“We talked about this. You need to escape. You’ve got a new identity, you could move to Alaska or Europe. Somewhere where they won’t ask too many questions. Somewhere you can recover and become someone new.”
It sounds good. Too good.
“You’re right.” Now my breathing is fast. “One last thing. What do we do with him?” I look at Holliday, eyes shut, like he’s meditating.
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You want to give him his daughter back?”
Avery hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s suffered and she doesn’t deserve any more. “Seems like the right thing to do.”
“I’ll see you back here.” And she’s gone.
“Are you going to take me to Avery?”
I didn’t expect it, but the prospect of Holliday being reunited with his daughter hits me in a part of my brain I’d closed off. Raw emotion, something like hope or joy, maybe. Or just something other than death and hate and destruction.
I put the gun away. “Come on, let’s get your daughter back.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Carter
Carter leaned back against the wall and let out a deep breath as the Seattle police uniformed officers started taping off the vicinity.
He knew that John Mason had gotten to Vance, just like he’d gotten to Harry Youngblood. But where was he? Always one step ahead of them, first murdering Harry Youngblood, now Frank Vance. And he still had Avery. The only good news Carter could see was that Holliday playing along meant that she was still alive.
Something to hold on to.
Unless he only thought she was.
A black Suburban pulled up, and Nguyen got out of the back, hugging her suit jacket over her shoulders like a rain cap. “Well, Max. Another body.”
He just nodded at her.
“You have any idea why this guy’s taking out GrayBox employees?”
A shake of the head was all he had to give.
“Why is he doing this, Max?”
Carter definitely didn’t have that answer yet. He stepped away from the wall and joined her. “Holliday’s working with him. Either coerced or…”
“What have you got on Vance?”
“Franklin Leonard Vance.” Carter held up his laptop. “Unmarried. Military service record, Third Armored during Desert Storm, then redeployed to First Armored after they retired it.”
“That’s not a whole hill of beans, is it?”
“They’ve been asking questions about a military exercise at a school. Olson reckoned there’s something shady there, but whatever it is died with Frank Vance and Harry Youngblood.”
Nguyen looked up at the house for a good few seconds. “Okay, Max.” She smoothed down her pants. “You’ve done good here, but this isn’t finding Avery Holliday. And I’m tired of listening to your belly rumble.”
Carter bit into his burrito. He hated Mexican food—too much fat and starch, even with the vegetables—but he ate it anyway. He was so hungry, he almost liked the taste. He bit into some lumpy chicken that wasn’t so nice.
The tiny cantina was busy with customers sinking bottles of Corona as they bit into their silver-foiled wraps. Two of them were arguing about whether a third had paid for their guacamole.
The real world and all its trivialities.
Nguyen took a bite of her burrito. “So.”
“So.” Carter washed down his burrito with some coffee and tried to think things through. Everything was like sludge in his head. “What do we have?”
“Nothing. We must’ve just missed them.”
“Keeps happening.”
“Means we’re getting closer, Max.”
“Or it means our luck’s running out.” He picked up his burrito and bit into it.
“Max?” Elisha charged toward him through the doors of the cantina. “Tyler’s got something.” She sat next to him and flipped open the sleeping laptop. “He’s run the facial recognition on the footage from the Federal Building. He’s identified the kidnapper.”
Carter snatched the laptop from her.
Mason John Wickstrom. Long red hair, bushy beard. A dead ringer for the man who’d killed Harry Youngblood.
The animal they’d been chasing.
Underneath was a redacted excerpt from his military record.
Ex-Navy SEAL with a photo of him a few pounds and a lot of hair lighter, much closer to the man he’d seen in Youngblood’s home.
And they had an address.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Mason
I point to the right. “This exit.”
Holliday takes the turn and heads through the intersection. He accelerates down the street, takes us past Layla’s house.
“Right here.”
He follows the turns, taking us around the long block, the diversion I’ve used so many times. Shit, what if they know I do and they’re—
Too late for that. Too late for anything. If they’re after me, they’ve got me. And I don’t really care. It’s over. I’m a dead man walking.
He stops at the end and waits. “Which way?”
“Right again.”
He sets off into traffic, following the curving road back to the freeway intersection. “We’ve been here before.”
“Good observation, Senator.” I can’t even put any menace into my voice. It just sounds flat. “Pull up here.” I wave at a space by the mailbox halfway along the stretch. He parks and I let the seatbelt go. “Stay here, okay? Remember that I’m still armed and we’ve got Avery.”
“I’ve seen you murder two people.”
“Don’t even begin to tell me they didn’t deserve it.”
“I knew it.” It’s like a thought slipped out by accident.
“What, you knew that I didn’t think they’d face a fair trial? That some high-price lawyers would get them off?”
Holliday barely lifts his shoulder, but it’s still a shrug. “Just bring me my daughter.” Spoken like a man used to getting his way.
I fix him with a hard stare. “This is where we’re storing her, okay? Nobody lives there. Don’t think you can return and find us sitting around the fire. We’ll be long gone.”
He nods, eyes moistening. “Just get her.”
I get out onto the street, soaked, but the rain’s off for a brief respite. I cross the road, keeping an eye on Holliday as I reach into my pocket for the key.
That bastard is watching me, like I didn’t expect that. The threat should be enough—it has been so far.
I unlock the front door and take my time, listening hard. It’s dark and quiet. Too quiet. Layla should have the lights on. Avery should be awake now, my magic potion long since run out. She should be watching some Disney shit, keeping her distracted from the reality.
Trying to hide my fear, I open the door to the bedroom. Empty. Layla has even made the bed.
I set off throug
h the house, into the bathroom, the bedroom, the kitchen, the living room.
All empty.
There’s a note hanging from the mailbox on the inside of the door: SORRY.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Carter
Elisha turned into a low-rent neighborhood, a long row of single-story buildings, chain-link fences around each. Some had been lavished with love and attention, with fresh paint and hanging baskets.
Mason Wickstrom’s house sure had, even had an extension out back, painted wooden boards that matched the rest of the home.
Another two FBI SUVs were parked a few spaces down, two agents in each.
“Not exactly inconspicuous, huh?” Elisha drove past the house and pulled up in front.
“Hopefully whoever’s inside thinks they’re Jehovah’s Witnesses or something.” Carter got out, walked over to the first Suburban, and got in back, as Elisha got in the second. He tugged on his FBI windbreaker. “Give me an update.”
The male agent behind the wheel swiveled around. “Sir, we’ve had no entry or exit since arrival. We’ve got a TacOps unit on the back street, guarding the rear. Again, no entry or exit there.”
Carter needed to do it properly this time. Keep Nguyen off his back. “Good work.” He took another look at the house. “Do we know if there’s anyone inside?”
The TacOps agent handed Carter a device, like the pair of binocs Buck Rodgers would wear. “Have a look.”
Carter peered through the eyepiece. The green screen seemed to follow his eyes as he scanned the low-rise building. A figure glowed in reds, oranges, and yellows, sitting in the middle of the home. “Just one?”
“Confirmed.”
Carter exhaled slowly. So Avery wasn’t inside. But they might know where she was.