by Katy Munger
"Oh, Jesus," I screamed at them. "Focus! Focus and get me out of here!"
Candy had latched onto her captor with those even white teeth of hers, chomping down on the inside of his wrists with a ferocity that a rabid pit bull would have envied. The man was howling and trying to reach his gun.
And that was when it happened.
That was when the myth became legend.
That was when I knew that I was seeing history.
That was when it all started to make sense.
A man burst through the wall of flames. He was tall, dressed in jeans and a black leather jacket, and he held a shotgun in his hands. The fire licked around him and cowered behind him, framing his silhouette with an orange glow.
Firewalker. Firewalker Coombs. I knew that I was seeing the long missing Firewalker Coombs—and that he had been a man and not just a myth.
"Get away from my daughter,” he ordered the man on the couch, who was still trying to detach Candy from his arm. "Let go of him, darlin’. I've got him covered."
Candy rolled away to one side, blood smeared across her mouth, then tumbled to the floor. "I told you my father would come for me, you piece of crap,” she spat at the man. He was groaning and holding his wrist, looking up at Firewalker Coombs with terror in his eyes.
And that was when I finally got a better look at his face: Robert Tinajero. Robert Tinajero was Firewalker Coombs. And Firewalker Coombs had come back from the dead to save his daughter.
"Shut up," Firewalker told the big guy. "Or you get the same treatment I gave your friend out there."
"What did you do with Si?" the second man asked angrily.
"Don't worry. He’s alive. I need to leave something behind for the cops."
"Can you get us out of here now?" I shouted. "Hello? I'm right over here. Just another piece of meat. Waiting in prime roasting position."
Holding the shotgun against his hip, aiming it straight at his daughter's captor, Robert Tinajero pulled a huge hunting knife out of a sheath around his waist and cut Candy free with a few quick saws. He handed her the knife. By then, Candy and I were choking from the smoke, and the second guy looked like he was about to pass out. But Robert Tinajero did not seem the least bit bothered by the flames. "Cut her free," he told his daughter calmly as smoke swirled toward us. “Then I need you both to head outside while I take care of the situation in here."
"Don't kill them," I said. "Please. It's one thing to rescue us, but if you kill either one of those guys, and I'm not saying they deserve to live, but if you kill them, the cops will never stop looking for you. They'll find out who you are and the life you've built over the last twenty years will be gone. They're not worth it. Please don't kill them."
"I have no intention of killing them." he said. He brought the butt of his shotgun up high then cracked it against the skull of the big man on the couch. The man toppled to the floor and lay there motionless. "Don't worry. He's got a thick skull. You two go wait outside. I'm going to tie him up out back with his friend. We’ll leave them for the cops to find."
I did not need to be told twice. Candy was sawing through the ropes that bound my arms and legs with a savage determination. "Take it easy," I told her. "It's not going to do me any good if I die of stab wounds in the process."
"You just are never satisfied, are you?" she grumbled. She nicked me and I began to plead for mercy just as the thick cords fell away. "There." She looked at me with satisfaction. "Let's get the hell out of here."
Choking and holding my hand over my mouth, I followed her out the front door. But just as Candy dashed down the steps into the darkness, behind me I saw the shadow of a man inside the house flicker across the hallway floor. Shit. Either Beefcake Si had revived or the third man was back. And Robert Tinajero had no idea. I could not leave him alone to face them all.
I had no weapon. Dashing back into the house, I grabbed a cast-iron skillet that was hanging on the wall in the foyer as a rustic decoration and ran into the living room with it. The fire had spread and the couch was starting to smoke, sending black tendrils of burning plastic into the air. Firewalker was bending over the man he had hit with his shotgun butt, trying to fashion restraints out of the cut rope we had left behind. Just as I took a step forward, a figure burst through the curtain of flames blocking the patio door, aiming a gun at Firewalker. Screaming like a banshee, I rushed him, raising the cast-iron skillet as high as I could. I put all my weight into it as I brought it down hard on the gunman's head. It made a sound like someone hitting a watermelon with a mallet before the man crumpled to the ground.
Firewalker whirled around and grinned at me. "Thanks," he said. “I knew you’d come in handy.”
"Candy’s out front," I told him. "Let's get the hell out of here. The neighbors must have called the fire department by now. I vote we let the cops save these bozos.”
Behind me, I heard coughing and realized that one of the men was fighting back to consciousness. Firewalker heard it as well. "With you," he said, reaching out a hand. I took it. It was strong and smooth and I held onto it for dear life as he pulled me through the smoke and out the front door. "Candy!" he called out into the darkness.
His daughter coughed in reply. He found her on her hands and knees in the front yard, gulping at the fresh air. "It’s time to go," he told her. "Are you ready to ride?"
She struggled to her feet, nodding. "Let's do it," her father said. He let go of my hand to take Candy’s. I hated to let go. Holding his hand had made me feel so safe, as if everything was going to be okay.
“Meet me at the Red Roof Inn in Asheville. Look for my bike,” he shouted over his shoulder as he scooped his daughter up and began to sprint down the road, the moonlight catching the colors of the fiery phoenix stitched onto the back of his jacket. Firewalker Coombs had risen from the ashes yet again.
I didn't need to be told to get out of there twice. But first I had something to do. I ran toward the back of the house, where the supporting beams of the back deck were burning merrily. I tried to remember where Beefcake #2 had thrown my gun. I plowed through the bushes and searched the undergrowth on my hands and knees but could find nothing. I’d give it another minute and then I had to bolt.
“Looking for something?”
I froze at the sound of a woman’s voice and heard the distinctive snick of an automatic pistol being racked.
It was the woman from next door. Carmine Lopresti’s sister. She was standing over me calmly, gun in hand. “You have fifteen seconds to explain what you’re doing on my property.”
“Three of your thugs kidnapped one of my clients who was a dwarf stripper and were holding her for ransom in the cabin that’s on fire.”
Insane-sounding? Yes. But I thought it summed up the situation nicely, considering that most of my attention had been on trying not to crap my pants.
”Explain further,” she demanded.
“I don’t know much more than that,” I said, hating that I sounded so desperate. “I think my friend Sammy Templeton was laundering money for them but they killed him and went rogue, kidnapping my client for some extra cash.”
The woman stared down at me, considering what I had said.
“We didn’t kill them,” I explained hastily.
“Why not?” she asked. “Sounds to me like they deserve it.”
With that, she turned her back on me and headed toward the cabin, which was now fully in flames. She held her gun held down at her side with both hands, like a Charlie’s Angel gone bad.
Forget finding my gun. I would just have to be the only unarmed person in the neighborhood. I scrambled to my feet and began to sprint. It was time to get the hell out of there.
As I ran through the woods, making my way back to where I had parked my car, I wondered why the woman had been carrying a gun instead of a cell phone. Had she even bothered to call the fire in? If she was the sister of someone high up in the Lopresti family, the men were probably her bodyguards. Had she known they were freelancing?
<
br /> I wondered. If those men had gone off the reservation, if they had taken Candy without prior permission from the boss? Well, then it would be better off for the three of them if the fire got them. I doubted their initiative would be appreciated. Every crime family has its rules. And woe be it to anyone who failed to follow them.
Chapter Eleven
Under any other circumstances, sharing a motel room with Robert Tinajero, a.k.a Firewalker Coombs, would have been a dream come true. But that night? I was so exhausted I could hardly see by the time I found the right motel and knocked on the door in front of the only motorcycle in the parking lot. He opened it a crack with the chain still on, saw it was me, and unlocked it so I could step through.
The first thing I spotted was Candy curled up in a ball on one of the two queen-sized beds. Her father had covered her with a light blanket and she was sleeping with a dedication that only comes when you know that there’s a loved one standing watch over you. It was all I could do not to throw myself down on the bed beside her and join her in oblivion.
Her father was on his cell phone, speaking in low tones but not making much effort to conceal what he was saying. "I think the best thing is to drop her off somewhere in the morning," he was saying. "You'll be out by noon, bro."
I grabbed the phone out of his hand before he could stop me, knowing who the caller had to be. "I guess you aren’t quite the asshole I thought you were," I told Cody Sherrill. "What I want to know is how you got your hands on a phone when you're supposed to be in jail and it's after midnight."
There was a silence before Cody answered. "I'm guessing this is Casey," he finally said. “And I’m surprised you felt a need to ask me about the phone. You know I have my ways.”
"Don't think for a moment the cops aren’t going to figure out that the so-called ransom call from your cell phone, so conveniently traced back to you, was anything but a distraction so that your friend could shake loose from their surveillance and meet the real kidnappers on his own.”
"Are you arguing with that strategy?" he asked. "Are you unhappy with the outcome?"
"No," I said. "I'm not. But you took a big risk. Even if they do find Candy safe and sound tomorrow, there's no guarantee they'll let you out.”
"I've taken big risks for Firewalker before," he said. "That's what friends are for."
I was silent. Cody misread my silence and defended his actions. "Look, Firewalker saved my life once and he’s been like a brother to me for twenty five years. I helped him disappear a long time ago, even though it put me dead center on the list of suspects, at least in the eyes of the law. I'm not going to stop watching his back now. He's spent his whole life trying to make up for any harm he did back in his old life. Do you know how many people he's helped since then? His journey may not be my journey, but I admire him for what he’s done with his life. And I'll protect him even if it means my own life."
“That’s your land he lives on with his wife, isn’t it? It’s still part of your family’s holdings, making it a dead end for anyone trying to find him.”
My theory was met with silence. A tornado of conflicting emotions swirled inside me. Cody Sherrill was still a misogynistic sleazeball, but apparently he was a misogynistic sleazeball with a code of honor. What was I supposed to do with that?
“Look, I’ll do what I can to help," I finally told him.
“Sorry about the other night at the Blue Note,” he mumbled in reply. “I would never have really hurt you, you know. But I thought you might be getting too close to the truth. When telling you Rodney was a narc didn’t seem to distract you, I was just trying to scare you off the case.”
“Sure you were.”
I handed the phone back to Firewalker and took another look at the slumbering Candy. Sleep was like a magnet I could not resist. I fell across the second double bed and was instantly asleep.
Too few hours later, I felt a strong hand gripping my shoulder, shaking me awake. I was deep under, swimming in a dark and murky sea of sleep. Nothing was going to bring me to the surface. And maybe what happened then was all a dream anyway. Perhaps it did not really happen. But when I woke up alone in that hotel room ten hours later, I was left with a memory of a soft male voice, little more than a warm breath in my ear, whispering, "I'll never forget what you did for my daughter. If ever you need help, you call me. In another lifetime, I would have killed to have a woman like you by my side. Maybe next time around."
Yes, I had probably dreamed it.
I had fallen asleep so quickly that I had failed to phone Bobby D. to let him know that I was okay and that Candy had been found safe. He had left over a dozen messages by the time I called him back and he was irritated at me for my carelessness.
"I see you're alive," he said sourly. "Do you know what I've been going through? The cops called me four hours ago. Candy Tinajero was found sitting calmly on a rocking chair on the porch of a Cracker Barrel just outside of Winston-Salem. She claims the kidnappers released her in the woods nearby and she found her way there. She was wearing a clean flannel shirt and a pair of blue jeans that looked freshly laundered. Curious how the kidnappers just happened to have her size and let her change into them before she escaped."
"Curious indeed," I mumbled. "Listen, I'm really sorry I forgot to call you. I have a lot to tell you, but I don't want to go into it over the phone. I'll get back as soon as I can."
"You better. The shit has hit the fan. Candy claims she never saw her kidnappers. That sounds a little far-fetched to me. Except… well, you know. She’s probably covering for you."
“Probably,” I agreed. Some things I don’t even tell Bobby. “Have they released Cody Sherrill yet?"
"Yes. He claims the ransom call was probably some other member of his club, trying to score some easy cash by pretending to be one of the kidnappers. He claims the guy must have taken his phone when he wasn't looking and he has no idea who it was."
"And the cops believe him?" I said incredulously.
"No. But they have no other evidence against him and she's back safe, so they have to let him go."
"So Cody Sherrill keeps his squeaky clean record?"
"Guys like him sometimes do."
"Maybe he's not as bad as we think," I said mysteriously.
"Maybe," Bobby said. "But I doubt it. Are you on your way back now?"
"Yes. I need a half hour to download as many calories as possible, preferably ones involving sausage gravy and biscuits, and then I'll be back to fill you in."
"Casey," Bobby started to say. He stopped, also unwilling to say much more over a cell phone. "I feel I should tell you that your friend Shep called."
My stomach dropped. Shep was the sheriff in a mountain county near Asheville who I’d been dating, and then alternately avoiding, for reasons not quite clear to myself. And I knew where Bobby was going. “What did he want?” I asked.
"He wanted me to know that there had been a triple murder in a house near Lake Lure. Three guys associated with the Lopresti crime family, apparently. The house had been set on fire.”
"Murder?" I asked. “You sure? Not smoke inhalation?”
"All three of them were found with a gunshot in one leg and a bullet through the head. Executed. It was cold, Casey. Real cold."
"It wasn't me," I assured him, just in case that was what he was thinking. “I promise.” I thought of the woman I had seen striding through the woods, gun at her side, and I had a pretty good idea about what had gone down.
"They went off the reservation," I told Bobby. "You know what happens to people who do that."
“I do,” he agreed.
"What made Shep call you?" I asked slowly, afraid of the answer.
"He said something about witnesses having seen a vintage Porsche driving around the lake before the murders. You really need to drive a less distinctive car. Shep's mind went straight to you."
Perversely, in the midst of all I was going through, hearing Shep’s name filled me with a desire to see him again.
> "Casey?" Bobby's voice was louder.
"Sorry," I mumbled. "A lot has happened. I'll see you soon and fill you in."
I hung up, a dozen different emotions tumbling inside me. I was a regular washing machine full of regrets. But after a few seconds, regret was replaced by an overwhelming need to go home. I never look back. I’ve trained myself to only look at what’s ahead of me. Life’s a lot more bearable that way.
Firewalker Coombs was waiting for me in the parking lot. “Your engine’s shot,” he said, wiping his hands clean with a bandana. “You ought to pay more attention to your engine lights. You were leaking oil pretty bad. Engine’s seized.”
“You came all the way back from Winston-Salem for me?” I asked.
He held out a helmet for me. “I owed you. Come on. Put this on. I’ll give you a ride back to Durham.”
That ride was all I could have wanted and more, flying down the highway with my arms wrapped tightly around him, as if I was astride Pegasus himself. The wind was a roar in my ears and the tips of my hair whipped wildly beneath my helmet. Speed. Freedom. Pure, uncontrollable joy. I knew that both of us sensed that it would never happen again—me and him so close together as one—at least not this lifetime around.
I could have ridden with him until my time on this earth was done. But moments like that never last. That’s why you remember them forever. I was home before I knew it. And there was no point in talking or even saying good-bye.
We smiled at each other and he rode away, both of us knowing I would keep his secret. Firewalker Coombs would fade back into the darkness. Robert Tinajero, straight-arrow husband and devoted father, would take his place. And no one would have any regrets.
●
I got away with it. At least on the surface. I'm not sure that Bill Butler believed I’d had nothing to do with the mysterious circumstances that had returned Candy Tinajero to her family. But, for whatever reason, he let it go. His interrogation of me was actually conducted at a bar, over straight Jack, and it was little more than a halfhearted attempt to find out the truth. About three drinks in, I started to wonder whether what he was really trying to accomplish was to let me know that he had separated from his wife and was on the market again. But those dreams were dashed when he stood up around midnight and tossed some bills on the bar to pay for both of our tabs.