Dark Fissures

by Coyle, Matt;

  “We’re having dinner.”

  “A couple of old friends.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yet, he didn’t even know you were already in town. Didn’t know you were over at the house of your dead SEAL buddy going through his desk.”

  “Jacks’s request was just between the two of us. KB, or anybody else, doesn’t need to know about it.” The poker face finally broke into a flinty glare.

  “Were you ever a medic in the SEALs, Rollins?”

  “No.” Poker face.

  “Know anything about fentanyl?”

  “What’s this all about, Cahill?”

  “A lot of things.” I lifted the gun from my side to remind him who was in charge. “Fentanyl?”

  “It’s some sort of painkilling drug, I think.”

  “What time you hit the road yesterday?”

  “Five p.m.”

  “Your wife verify that?”

  “I left from the casino.”

  “So someone there will be able to confirm that?”

  “Maybe not the exact time. I don’t report to anybody or have a clock in my position, Cahill. I’m head of security and come and go as I please.”

  “I know. You’re very important.” I looked at the call log on his phone, scanning for calls with the 775 area code that were different than the first two on the list. “So let’s see if I can find the work number or do you want to tell me?”

  “You seem to be having a good time playing detective. Figure it out.”

  “Rick?” Brianne’s voice startled me from the front of the house.

  My head shot toward her voice. Movement from Rollins. I whipped my head toward him and sprang the gun up from my side. A dark blur exploded against my head.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  “RICK?” A VOICE floating down from heaven. “Rick?”

  My eyes fluttered open. A blurry face hovered above me.

  “Are you okay?” The voice seemed disembodied from the face above me.

  I blinked a few times and the face came into focus. Big round eyes. Short square snout. George the Boxer peered down at me with concerned eyes. Or surprised eyes. Or just big eyes. I moved my head to the left and it screamed from inside. Thumping pain.

  Brianne’s face materialized through the wall of pain. Blue eyes, amber hair pulled back behind her ears, freckled button nose.

  “Are you okay?” She held my face in her hand.

  “Where’s Rollins?” I lifted up and wished I hadn’t.

  “Stay down.” She gently guided my head back to the floor. “Odell was here? He did this to you?”

  “Yes. How long have I been out?”

  “Not very long. I heard a crash after I called your name and froze. Then I heard the den door to the backyard slam against the wall and I came back here.” She lowered her chin. “Sorry I didn’t come right away.”

  “Wouldn’t have made a difference, but we have to find him.” I pushed off the floor to a sitting position and ate the pain.

  “He’s already gone.”

  “Help me up.”

  “We should call 911.”

  “Help me up!” I rolled over to all fours and pushed off the floor.

  Brianne put her shoulder under my arm and lifted. She powered me to my feet, and George took a couple steps backward.

  “Where’s the phone?” I scanned the floor and saw my gun against the wall by the doorjamb and the brass paperweight that Rollins smashed into my temple at my feet, but no phone.

  “I think it’s in your pocket. I can feel it against my leg.”

  “Not mine. His.”

  “I don’t see it. He must have taken it.”

  I shoved my hand down the back of my pants while Brianne held me steady. No gun. Rollins had taken his gun and phone and left me alive. Why? No time to put a bullet in my head after he yanked his gun from my waistband? It takes less than a second to point and shoot. Concerned about Brianne seeing him? Why not put her down, too? Whatever his reasons, I should have just been grateful that I was still alive, but his actions didn’t fit. Maybe I’d figure it out when my head wasn’t jackhammering pain and we weren’t exposed.

  “We have to get out of here in case he comes back with his friends.” I bent down to pick up my gun, and Brianne bent with me steadying my body. “I saw your note. What took you so long to get here?”

  “I took George for a walk at the beach first.” She studied my eyes. Something must not have looked right. “I think we need to take you to the emergency room.”

  “I’m okay.” I disengaged from her and saw the large stand-up gun safe in the far corner of the office. “Do you know the combination to the gun safe?”

  “Yes.”

  “Open it up.”

  Brianne raised her eyebrows at me, but walked over to the safe with me right behind. She punched numbers into the digital keypad, spun the sprocketed handle, and pulled open the safe door with both hands. She stepped back to allow me to look inside. Jim Colton sure did like his guns. Inside was a Mauser M 12 bolt-action hunting rifle, a Colt M4 assault rifle, a Mossberg 5901A1 tactical shotgun, and a mint-condition Winchester 30-30 lever action rifle.

  The upper shelves held handguns. A Smith & Wesson .357 revolver like mine, a Sig Sauer 9mm, a Colt .45, and a Bonds Arms Texas Defender two-shot derringer. There was also a KA-BAR tactical knife in its sheath. I grabbed the knife and stuck it in my back pocket. I checked the derringer. Loaded. I stuck it in my front pants pocket and put a box of .357 shells in the front pocket of my sweatshirt.

  Brianne closed and locked the den door to the backyard.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.” I stiff-legged toward the door. My head swirled around the room and vibrated pain. Each step was another piece pulled from a Jenga set. I didn’t know how many I had left before I went tumbling down.

  A picture on the wall of the office caught my eye, and I stopped to look at it. The one with the four Musketeer SEAL buddies kneeling in front of the pot of gold. I grabbed it off the wall. “I’m taking this with us.”

  “Why?”

  “For a lineup. I’ll explain later.” I teetered into the hallway.

  Brianne followed behind with George. “I’ll meet you outside. I just need to get my phone charger and some dog food for George.”

  “Where’s the dog food?”

  “In the pantry in the kitchen.”

  I tightroped into the kitchen and the walk-in pantry and grabbed a half-full thirty-five-pound bag of dog food. The good stuff, like I fed Midnight. I also grabbed a bag of Oreos. The bad stuff, like I sometimes fed myself.

  Brianne was already on the front porch when I went outside. She held George’s leash in one hand and a guitar case in the other. She saw me looking at the case.

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. I can’t be without Brad for very long.”

  “Brad?”

  “Paisley.”

  “Of course.”

  “Stressful times can be very inspiring.” She smiled and I laughed.

  “Let’s hope you don’t have to write too many songs.”

  * * *

  I let Brianne drive me back to the hotel and left my car on the street near her house. I lay down on the hotel room bed and Brianne pressed ice wrapped in a plastic bag against the lump on my left temple. The ice didn’t help the pain. But I didn’t want the lump to get any bigger. We’d stopped at a store on the way to the hotel and bought some Motrin. Six tablets—1200 milligrams—hadn’t eased my throbbing headache, yet. Under normal circumstances, I might have let Brianne drive me to the emergency room. But the circumstances had been abnormal over the last couple days. Hospitals drew cops, and I didn’t want to bump into any. Years of butting heads with LJPD had made me paranoid. The last couple days dealing with Chief Moretti and the FBI metastasized that paranoia.

  Brianne’s blue eyes looked at me with affection clouded by concern. So different from the angry eyes I’d seen after we left the FBI meeting yesterday morning. I w
elcomed the change and the new intimate aspect of our relationship, but was leery. Not of her intentions, but of repercussions from my decisions.

  I’d ordered my life around a handful of rules. Not gleaned from societal norms or self-help gurus or even the Good Book. They had been forged through the fire of my own life experiences. And those experiences had taught me not to get involved with a “client.” But even beyond the rules, I’d lost confidence in my instincts and judgment. With Brianne so close, mistakes I made now wouldn’t only hurt me, they could get her killed. I’d already lost people in my life because of errors in judgment. I couldn’t risk doing it again.

  “I think you should get on a plane and fly back home to Brooksville until I get this thing settled.” I put my hand on top of hers, holding the ice to my head. “Take George with you, leave him with a friend, or put him in a kennel for a while. I could even find a short-term home for him, but you need to get out of town.”

  “Do you think Cash is in danger?” Eyes wide.

  “No, but it wouldn’t hurt to alert him to be aware of his surroundings.”

  “I already did.” She laced a strand of hair behind her ear. “Rick, the only way I’m leaving is if you’re with me. I’m the one who got you involved in this. Half of me wished I hadn’t and the selfish half is glad I did or I wouldn’t have gotten to know you.”

  “I don’t have any regrets about taking the case, but we have to be clear-eyed about this. These men are killers and they’re not going to stop until they eliminate all possible threats to themselves and whatever they’re protecting. They went after Miranda because she may have gotten a glimpse of one of them. They tried to kill me even after they knew I didn’t know anything and that I couldn’t physically identify them. Just by being Jim’s wife, you’re a threat. They’ll come for you if they haven’t already.”

  “What do you mean, if they haven’t already?”

  “Odell Rollins. I think he may have been one of my attackers last night. And today he shows up at your house and searches Jim’s desk. What if his original mission was to kill you? If you’d been home when he came by, you would have invited him in. If you had, you’d probably be dead.”

  “Odell would never hurt me.” She replaced her hand with mine on the ice bag and sat up straight. “He doesn’t like me anymore, but he used to love me like a sister because Jim was like a brother. He’d never hurt either one of us.”

  “Brothers kill each other every day. It’s not even news anymore.”

  “The only two things I’m sure of about Jim’s death is that he was murdered and Odell had nothing to do with it. They had a bond that I’d never seen between two men and rarely between two women.” Brianne leaned down and kissed me on the forehead. “You’re giving your heart and soul to finding Jim’s killer, and I can’t even express how much it means to me. Maybe someday I will in a song. But you have to trust me on this. Odell would never hurt Jim or let anyone else hurt him.”

  “Okay, then why did he enter your home uninvited and rifle Jim’s desk with a gun strapped to his hip?”

  “A lot of ex-military carry guns. With what’s going on in the world today, I’m glad they do. Maybe Odell really was making sure that I was paying for Cash’s education.” I’d already told her about the bullshit story Rollins had given me. “Or maybe he was looking for something that might have led to Jim’s murder.”

  “When I saw him in Lake Tahoe, he almost had me convinced that he believed Jim killed himself.”

  “I doubt he really believes that. He probably didn’t want to give you too much information. It’s still name, rank, and serial number with those guys. They look after each other and clean up their own messes.”

  “That’s pretty stupid if I’m the only person trying to find Jim’s killer.”

  “Maybe Odell’s trying to take care of it on his own.” She scratched George, who’d planted himself next to her, behind the ear. “Maybe that’s why he came down here.”

  “Why now? Your husband’s been dead for three months.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He’s supposed to meet Kyle Bates for dinner Friday night and Bates doesn’t even know he’s already in town.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything.” She straightened up.

  “It proves he got here earlier than expected and doesn’t rule out that he could have been one of the men who attacked me last night.”

  “If that’s true, why didn’t he kill you today when he had the chance?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t figured that out yet.” I opened my hands. “But he did knock me unconscious. Still convinced that Rollins had nothing to do with Jim’s death?”

  “I don’t know.” Her eyes circled in uncertainty and fear. She looked like she’d just been told that all the truths she knew about life were lies. I’d never felt worse about winning a point in my life. “But why would he kill Jim?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it had to do with something that happened overseas.”

  “They’ve both been in the States for four years. Why do you think it has something to do with their time overseas?”

  “I don’t have an answer yet. It’s all speculation right now. The best I can do is look at the facts we know and try to draw reasonable conclusions.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “If I’m wrong then I keep working until I’m right. But right or wrong, you need to leave town. It’s too dangerous here right now. If you stay here, I’ll have one more thing to worry about. I need all my attention pointed in one direction.”

  “I’m not a child, Rick. I’m forty years old. I’ve raised a son, and somebody killed his father. A man who I once loved and will always admire. This is my fight. I’m going to stay here with you, and we’re going to find out who killed Jim.”

  I was lying on my back with an ice pack shoved against my head, had my nose broken by a woman, been knocked unconscious, drugged, had a gun taken away from me, been water boarded, and saved from certain death by a woman who endured a beating that almost killed her just so I’d live.

  “Okay.” I needed all the help I could get. “You can stay unless it gets hairier.”

  “Good. I’ve got enough Marriott rewards points for three more free nights here. After that, we’ll have to stay somewhere cheaper.”

  I just hoped we’d live that long.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  I TOOK A cab back to my car in La Jolla and drove over to the hospital at 7:00 p.m. I left Brianne back at the hotel with George, her Sig Sauer, and a box of .357 Magnum shells.

  Miranda was still in room 432, but now she had a Rankin side of beef standing sentinel outside her door. This one made Buff back at the mansion look like a bantamweight.

  “Call your boss and tell him Rick Cahill is here to see Miranda.”

  “No visitors.” His voice sounded like it came out of the bottom of a well.

  “Call your boss.” I was glad he was there but tired of no. “We’re on the same team.”

  “No visitors.” He stuck a hand out that I could have sat in.

  “Rick?” Miranda’s voice floated through the open door. “Sebastian, it’s okay. You can let him in.”

  Sebastian? At least his parents had a sense of humor.

  “Mr. Rankin said no visitors.” But his voice had lost its echo. Miranda held sway over him. If those two ever walked down a dark alley together, I’d feel sorry for the alley.

  “He didn’t mean Rick. He saved my life.”

  She had it backwards, but I let it lie. Sebastian dropped his hand, and I went into the room. Miranda pushed a button on a square controller and rose with the bed into a sitting position. She had two black eyes, one almost swollen shut, and a hematoma on the left side of her head that gave me lump envy. Her whole face was a half size too big.

  Yet she smiled when she saw me, which warmed me and made me feel guilty all at once.

  “How are you feeling?” I set down the flower arrangement I bought at the gift shop
on the table next to her bed.

  “Better. I still have a pretty bad headache, but they ran a CAT scan and some other tests and everything looked okay. I should be out of the hospital in a couple days. Thanks so much for the flowers. They’re beautiful.”

  “That’s the least I could do.” I sat in a chair next to the bed. “You saved my life, Miranda. Twice, really. You stopped the guy in the ski mask from finishing the job and then you brought me back from the dead. I don’t know how I . . . I don’t know . . .”

  My eyes welled and my throat tightened around the words. The emotion snuck up on me, pulling at me from a part of me I tried to ignore. I wasn’t tearing up for myself. I’d cheated death before. Not that it was old hat, and I wasn’t grateful to be alive. I treasured life and still hoped to find true happiness in mine before I died. But I knew death was out there in the shadows, stalking me. And more and more, I felt it wouldn’t wait for old age.

  No, I wasn’t teary-eyed for my own mortality. I was humbled that someone would risk their life to save a wretch like me.

  “It’s okay, Rick.” Miranda took my hand in hers and stroked it. “You would have done the same thing for me.”

  This former MMA fighter, who had nearly died in the last twenty-four hours and who I’d really only known for one afternoon, could read my mind.

  “Why did you do that?” The emotion gone, I was now a scientist trying to understand the human condition. “Why didn’t you just call the police and get the hell out of there?”

  “I didn’t want you to die.”

  “You barely knew me. You risked your life to save me when ninety-nine percent of people would have run and then maybe called the police.”

  “I don’t want anyone to die. Unless they deserve it. But I especially don’t want you to die.” She smiled through her broken face. “I guess I’m that one in a hundred.”

  “At least.” I didn’t want to get into a conversation about why I was special to her. My life was complicated enough and I didn’t have those kinds of feelings for Miranda. But I knew I could without trying very hard.

  “And we’re even anyway. You probably saved my life by rushing me to the hospital and again when you stopped that guy from getting into my room. We’re definitely even.” She gave me the beautiful gargoyle smile again. “At least.”