Cause to Save

by Blake Pierce

  “I came to see Rose,” she said.

  “Yeah,” O’Malley said, breaking the hug and trying to maintain some composure. “She’s sleeping. But she asked about you. I had to make a decision…I told her about Ramirez. I hope that was okay?”

  “That’s fine,” she said. “Thanks.”

  “We got her another room, too. With a lock and unbroken door and everything.” He handed her a room key. A17 sat in the center of its keychain.

  She walked to the room and entered quietly, closing the door behind her so slowly that it didn’t make any sound when it fit back into the frame. The room was another two-bed set-up, and Rose had taken the bed closest to the wall. Avery went to her and sat on the edge of the bed. Rose was indeed sleeping, but not very deeply.

  Avery stroked her daughter’s dark hair. Again, she felt the sadness wanting to well up but she choked it back down. She kissed Rose on the forehead and whispered, “I love you, kid. I’ll be right back.”

  With that, she stood up and looked down at her daughter. She was overcome with an abundance of love—a love she had not felt in looking down on her daughter since the days she had slept in a crib. Rose was going to have to live the rest of her life without a father. And Avery would always feel partly to blame for that.

  She bit at her bottom lip, causing the slightest bit of pain.

  No tears, she thought. Not yet.

  She turned and went back for the door. As her hand reached out for it, she heard Rose stirring in the bed behind her. And then, her voice: “Hey, Mom?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sorry about Ramirez.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You okay?”

  “I will be…maybe. Eventually.”

  Rose made a hmmm sound in the darkness. “You know where he is now, don’t you? You’re going after him?”

  “I have to, baby. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, Mom. Go find him and feed him his fucking heart. Just…come back to me, okay?”

  “I will.”

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “And I love you.”

  With that, she made her exit. She had to, or else she was going to become a blubbering mess and the plans she had for the next few hours would be shot. She relocked the door as she stepped back out into the night—which was quickly winding down to morning.

  Avery found O’Malley in the gathering of five policemen standing outside of their cars in the chilly night air. She waved him over as she walked back toward her car. He came quickly, having apparently sensed the urgency and resoluteness in her when he had hugged her a few minutes ago.

  “I need you to do a few things for me, O’Malley,” she said.

  “Anything within my power, I’ll get it done.”

  “Three things. First…if I’m not here when Rose wakes up, please make sure she eats something. Second, I’m going to get in my car and leave here when you and I are done talking. I don’t want you to follow me and I don’t want any questions asked.”

  “Avery, I can’t do that. You know that…”

  “Third,” she said. “I’m going to text you soon. Maybe half an hour, maybe an hour. I don’t know, exactly. It’ll tell you where I am. And I want you there first.”

  “Avery, what are you—”

  “I said no questions,” she said. “Please, O’Malley. Do this for me. And when you get my text and leave here, I’m trusting you to leave Rose in the best care possible.”

  She knew she was sounding bossy, like some traumatized diva. But she didn’t care. She knew what was riding on the next few hours and, quite frankly, the way she was perceived by others in the A1 wasn’t high on her list of things to care about at the moment.

  “Please,” she added.

  “Fine,” he said. “But you said you’d text no later than one hour from now. Once one hour and five minutes goes by, I’m calling it in. I’ll report you as missing if I have to.”

  “Fair enough,” she said.

  She walked quickly back to her car before O’Malley could say anything else. As she put on her headlights and backed out, she watched his figure shrink and then disappear altogether. She turned back out onto the streets and headed east, pretty sure it would be the last place this case would take her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  At night, most of the docks along the Port of Boston looked almost majestic. Cargo ships came and went and, much further down the port along the downtown stretch, cruise ships would dock in from time to time. From the air, it all looked clean and promising, just another scenic area of Boston.

  But as a detective, Avery knew better. She knew that there were nooks and crannies along the docks that were unsavory. In the shadows of the cargo ships and fishing hauls there were other activities usually taking place; these were activities that involved the trading of money for bodies or drugs or both. And it was all hidden in plain sight while business was being conducted as usual in waters and on piers and docks several hundred yards away.

  Avery drove beyond Union Wharf, heading further south, where the docks got a little less typical, a little less safe.

  She remembered the place well. Just off of the lesser known Newman’s Wharf, down a side street that made it look as if you were about to run directly into the water but too a sharp turn down a hill to an old loading area for smaller vessels.

  She’d been there before, of course. She’d been an attorney then, escorted by a policeman. The site of Biel’s first victim’s murder (outside of the mob executions, including one man nailed to the side of a shed). It had been the one scene Biel had physically been spotted at but still, there had never been any evidence.

  On her first visit, it had been just after lunch time. It had been overcast but humid, just as summer had kicked spring to the side. But now it was pitch black and cold as she watched Newsman’s Wharf pass by on her right. There was on boat anchored alongside it, but there were no lights shining from the boat. The only light came from two lone poles along the sides of the wharf, barely cracking the night on the dock or the water a few feet beneath it.

  Up ahead, the road veered to the left and then came to the winding turn. The road branched off here; she could go straight and head downtown or she could take the curb and go down the hill, to the old loading area that sat like some forgotten doorway to another world. She chose the curb, winding slowly downward onto a route that sat beneath a thin two-lane bridge that ran between an old building that had once been a paper mill and the small roadway toward Newman’s Wharf.

  As she passed under the small bridge, she saw the empty area beneath it. To the right, there was a brick wall that she supposed had once served as a sublevel to the old forgotten building that had once been a paper mill. To the left, there was a dirt hill that led up to the road, with old concrete platforms that had once held pillars when the little bridge had been bigger up until the late ’70s and some of the port had looked different.

  And ahead of her, a concrete platform and the open water.

  While she was a little uncertain as she parked the car, she was not the same scared woman she had been when she had come here as an attorney. She had some experience under her belt now. Not to mention her reloaded Glock and a hatred that was even now continuing to evolve into something that, quite frankly, was beginning to alarm her.

  In her head, she could her Biel whistling that tune. And she could see the writing on the wall from Ramirez’s room.

  Just sittin’…

  She reached for her door handle but hesitated. First, she grabbed her phone and pulled up a text screen. She entered O’Malley’s name and typed in: Under Newman’s Wharf, by old paper mill.

  But she did not press Send. Not yet…

  She pocketed her phone and opened the door. She left the car running, the headlights set to dim and pointed toward the bottom of the old loading platform. She stepped out onto the concrete, pulled out her sidearm, and walked down near the water.

  The smell of the place was disgusting, a m
ix of garbage, fish, and neglect. The sound of the water pushing gently against the edge of the fractured end of the platform was almost hypnotic, like something on one of those help-you-sleep recordings.

  As far as she could tell, there was no one else there. She could hear distant voices coming across the water, workers on wharfs and docks further down the port. But they may as well have been on another world because here, in this forgotten area, she felt stranded.

  Maybe I got it wrong, she thought. Maybe I got the message wrong. I’m so screwed up right now, I could be jumping at anything…any reason to think I’m closing in on him.

  Slowly, she walked down toward the water. She scanned left and right, looking for any shadow that seemed out of place. As she did so, her instincts started to take over, finely tuned mannerisms that had become a part of her over her years as a detective. She felt someone watching her, someone lurking somewhere in the shadows.

  To her left, there was an ancient-looking stack of pallets, the boards gray with age and moisture from the water. Back on the other side, toward the brick wall of the paper mill, she heard a faint clicking noise. She strafed over in that direction and saw an old shuttered doorway that had been concealed in the shadows. One of the boards was loose, its nail scraping slightly against the side of the old door frame from the slight breeze.

  If it’s moving in the breeze, its been broken recently, she thought. If it was like the other boards shuttering it up, old and derelict, that broken piece would have fallen out by now.

  She walked toward the doorway. It was thin and shrouded in darkness beyond the boards that blocked passage into the building. There was no question as to whether or not Biel was in there; she was sure that he was. The question was whether or not she called out to him, to let him know that she was here and ready to face him.

  She gripped her gun tightly as she stepped closer. The doorway was ten feet away, then five—

  She paused, hearing something behind her.

  Footsteps. Coming quickly.

  She wheeled around, bringing the gun up.

  She never even got a chance to fire. By the time she realized that there was a fragment of one of those broken pallets coming at her, she didn’t have time to throw up any defense. A section of pallet slammed into the side of her face. As she spun around and went to the ground, she did an instant body-check.

  The boards are old and mildewed—much softer than they would have been when they were first constructed. Also, my left shoulder took the brunt of the force. I’m okay…I’m okay.

  She tasted blood in her mouth as she rolled over and leveled her gun. She saw the shape of a man, still holding the pallet. Biel. He was bringing the pallet down again. She could hear the wood creaking in his hands.

  She pulled the trigger just as the pallet slammed into her arms. The shot went directly into the ground. There was a muffled ricochet as she lost the grip on the Glock. A shock of sharp pain went rocketing through her arms. She heard a cracking noise and, for a moment, feared that one of her wrists had been snapped. But then she felt the wood fragments against her face and realized that the pallet had broken in half as it struck her arms and the ground.

  She did her best to get to her feet as quickly as she could but the electric pain made it next to impossible to move her left arm. The best she could do was pushed herself partially up and away, trying to retreat.

  That turned out to be a mistake. It gave Biel access to her stomach, which he firmly sent a vicious kick into. A blast of pain soared through her stomach and into her chest. She came off of the ground and landed on her side.

  She looked up at Biel as he came down to his knees. He straddled her, one knee on either side of her hips. Slowly, almost erotically, he reached to the waist of his pants where she saw a hunting knife had been sheathed into a small holster. He drew the knife out and looked at it lovingly.

  Then, in a move so quick she barely saw it, he made a slicing gesture. She felt the blade slide easily through the skin of her cheek. It was a shallow cut; he was just playing with her. And the look in his eyes was one of pure madness. He planned on having fun with her before he inflicted any real pain.

  She tried to fight back but was still gasping for breath. She had no idea where her gun was and although the pain in her left arm had now downgraded to pins and needles, she still couldn’t manage to use it as well as she would have liked to.

  “My God,” Biel said, lowering his face to hers. The pressure against her stomach was immense, making it harder for her to gather her breath back. “I’ve been thinking about being back in your presence for all this years. Not just to kill you—although, that’s coming very soon—but to appreciate you. All of you. Do you know that feeling?”

  She nodded, hoping to lure him in. Playing into his psychosis might be the only way she could make it out of this. “I have,” she gasped, still finding it hard to breathe.

  This seemed to take him aback. “Oh, you think you have,” he said. “But you don’t know the—”

  She took that moment to spit in his face. It was thick and blood-tinged and she had just enough force behind it to make sure it landed directly in his face.

  His moment of utter surprise was only momentary. And she did everything she could to act on it. Utilizing a move she had only ever put to use during her Krav Maga classes at the gym, she pivoted her chest forward a bit and then brought her legs up fast and hard. The motion caused Biel to rock back just a bit…but just enough for Avery to wrap the bottoms of her legs around his neck.

  With a cry of pain and determination, Avery turned onto her side as Biel fell to the ground, still locked between her legs. She could instantly feel him favoring his left side as he tried to escape, presumably from the gunshots he had taken earlier in the night. And still, without the full strength of her left arm and still not able to draw a full breath, she knew he’d escape from the move in no time at all.

  She made a careful fist of her right hand and sat up. The muscles in her stomach ached from the motion but she endured it for as long as she could. As Biel managed to free his head bit by bit, Avery threw a series of hard punches into his head. One caught him on the side of the face, splitting open his eyebrow. One caught him in the side of the jaw, making a delicate sound as his teeth clicked together. She managed to land four punches before he wriggled out of the move. He scrambled to his feet but just as he made it, Avery braced herself on her elbows and sent a wide-arcing sweep to the left.

  It worked, taking Biel’s legs out from under him, but his legs were damned strong and a shock of pain slammed through her ankles with the impact. She heard the clatter of his knife striking the ground and falling out of his grip.

  Gun. Knife. All somewhere here in the darkness, she thought.

  However, as she got to her feet as quickly as she could, she reached for her cell phone instead. She pulled up the text she had composed for O’Malley and hit Send.

  In front of her, Biel was getting to his feet. With rage and frustration coming to the surface like lava, Avery charged at him and threw a knee into his face. A hollow thud filled the empty concrete platform as her knee struck him directly in the skull. He went down with a shout but as he fell, he managed to grab her leg.

  She went down with him, throwing her arms up to keep her face from smashing into the concrete. As she did, her forearm fell on something hard.

  The handle of his hunting knife. She quickly pulled it to her, keeping it hidden.

  “Jack,” she gasped, trying to wrestle away from him, hoping the mere act of speaking might distract him. “Why’d you kill him?”

  “He was your husband when you sent me to prison,” Biel hissed as he twisted at her leg. “I imagined him sleeping with you constantly. It was not fair. You were working to keep me free but fucking him…it made you impure. Distracted you. It’s one of the reasons you failed to keep me out of prison.”

  He was getting to his feet, still wrenching her leg. He was working to roll her onto her chest. She knew what
he was trying to do—to expose the back of her knee and then stomp down, probably dislocating it or tearing something.

  “Got a secret for you,” she said as she fought against it. “I gave up that case. I wanted you in prison. I could have done so much better.”

  Again, she used his shocked reaction to her advantage. She brought the knife up and, in another sit-up position, brought it hard across his right wrist. She was pretty sure the cut went deep. There was enough resistance for her to have to put a little extra force behind her movement.

  Biel screamed out and dropped her leg. He held his right wrist and she saw the blood flowing right away, even in the darkness.

  Not wanting to waste a single moment, she adjusted her grip on the knife and lunged forward, going for his stomach. He managed to sidestep it and when he did, he brought his left hand down hard. She knew from having worked with him in the past that he was right-handed but his left hand still packed a wallop. It struck her on the same side of the face the pallet had landed and for a moment, she saw stars as she went to the concrete.

  No more trying to distract him or shock him, she thought. This is going to go to the death. It just has to be a fight. No mind games, no clever tactics.

  Yet as she told herself this, Biel was already running at her. She had just enough time to block the first kick with her forearm, but the one that came immediately afterward struck her in the stomach. Then a second time. Then a third, this one perfectly aimed at her ribs.

  The pain in her right side was immense as a rib cracked. She felt it, sharp and debilitating for a moment.

  But she then remembered that she still held the knife. He drew back for a fourth kick and instead of blocking it, she met his leg with her right hand. The knife sank into his ankle. She could feel the blade passing by bone in a grinding sensation along the handle.