by C. S. Poe
Tapping on his phone, Sam pulled up a map of Queens and began zooming in. “The house they were in, that was over here. Right? Flushing? And this—this is the Parkway you’re talking about? And they want privacy. They want a single-family residence. They’re pulling back to get their necks out of the noose. What about here?” He stabbed at a section of the map.
Ophelia moved forward, leaned close enough to see the phone’s screen, but was still mindful of Sam’s weapon. “Where—the zoo?”
“I’d like to lock you and Rufus in a room and come back in a month. See if you’ve gotten all those jokes out of your system.”
“Calm down, Hulk. Corona, I get it. But that’s an awful lot of doors to knock on. And it’s based on nothing but hunches and assumptions.”
“Let’s hear a better idea.”
But before Ophelia could answer, her phone started to ring. Instead of picking up the call, though, she frowned at Sam.
“Answer your phone,” Ophelia finally stated.
“I don’t have ‘Hey Macarena’ for my ringtone. Answer your own damn phone.”
Ophelia shook her head. “It’s not—” She looked at the evidence bag still in her hand. The screen was lit up with an incoming call. No name, only a number.
“Shit,” Sam said. And then, knowing how stupid it sounded, he said, “Well, answer it.”
“And compromise evidence?” Ophelia protested. “Like hell.”
“Through the damn bag,” Sam said. “Tap the screen.”
Ophelia swore, brought the phone close, and tapped Accept hard through the plastic bag. She didn’t speak, instead listened and waited.
“H-hello?”
Sam couldn’t help himself. “Rufus? Holy Christ, Rufus, is that you?”
“Oh my God, Sam! You found the phone,” Rufus said, sounding near tears. “I called it, didn’t I? It was in the fucking mailbox.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re amazing. Where are you? Are you ok?”
“I’ve been better,” Rufus said, voice carrying through the bag. “I’m in some sort of abandoned auto shop. I found a sign inside, hang on—Dino’s Body Repair. This phone isn’t mine. Oh fuck, it’s probably being traced.”
“Dino’s Body Repair. Ok. Are you safe? Can you get out?” Holstering the gun, Sam pointed at the door for Ophelia to lead him to her car.
“No,” Rufus replied. “I’m locked inside.”
Ophelia shoved the evidence bag into Sam’s hand, opened the door, and bolted down the stairs.
“I had to knock a guy out,” Rufus continued. “Pretty sure he was left to guard the place. Sam, I think I have a concussion. I keep seeing double.”
“Just keep talking,” Sam said, because, hell, what was he supposed to say? “We’re coming. We’re going to be there as soon as we can. Find someplace you can hide.” Something wild bubbled inside Sam, like laughter and a scream at the same time. “Channel that inner street rat.”
Rufus chuckled. “I would if it was only me and Bruno upstairs.”
“What? Who’s there? What’s going on?”
“The kids are—” Rufus’s voice abruptly cut off.
Sam shot a glance at Ophelia as they plunged into the chaos of the street. She pointed at the bag, where the phone’s screen had gone black.
The phone’s battery was dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Rufus had gone back into the storage room and lifted Bruno’s cell, which had been in his back pocket and not part of his initial pat down. Rufus hadn’t been certain who to call for help, but sure as hell not 911. What if Heckler intercepted? What if the brigade Rufus hoped would save his ass were the very people who wanted him dead? He didn’t have Sam’s number, hadn’t bothered to read Ophelia’s business card, but he’d memorized the burner number that’d been dumped into Jake’s CallSpy account. Sure, it was a longshot, but it’d worked. Sam had found the phone, and the relief Rufus had felt after hearing his voice quelled the panic that had been bubbling inside. When the call ended abruptly, Rufus tried the burner again, but it went immediately to voicemail and he suspected the battery had probably been teetering at zero. It was fine, though. Sam said he was coming, that he’d be there soon, so Rufus had to take it as gospel. Sam had enough information to find him and that was that.
Rufus returned to the kids afterward—and Juliana was right, they were just babies—and told them to stay in the room. Some of them hadn’t understood, but a few nodded and others whispered to their friends, relaying the promise Rufus had made them: you’re going to be ok. He left the door ajar for the kids and returned to the auto body shop below. He turned off Bruno’s phone and left it on a workbench nearby. Rufus didn’t actually know if the phone was tapped or being traced, but he wasn’t the sort to take unnecessary chances.
Next, he dragged a metal worktable toward the window near the ceiling, his head pulsating and pounding with every screech and scratch of the legs against the cement floor. He pushed it against the far wall under the lone window, and then wiped his forehead. By the time he got it against the opposite wall, his head ached like he’d fallen asleep to Pauly Paul drumming all night long. Rufus climbed onto the table, but even standing at six feet, the window was still out of reach. He hopped down, unearthed a plastic crate that’d give him another foot’s reach, and carefully climbed back up.
He held on to the windowsill and looked out the tinted glass. Rufus didn’t see any pedestrians. There was a single-family home across the street, a lot under construction to the left of it, but it was the weekend so no crew, and beyond that, he couldn’t see shit. Rufus took a deep breath, turned his head away, and slammed his elbow against the glass. It took a few tries, but he finally shattered the window. Rufus pushed broken glass from the frame, grabbed onto the bars, and tried to get that much more view of his surroundings.
“Queens,” he muttered after a moment of deliberation. He heard the distant roar of engines—a lot of cars—somewhere to his left. “Parkway….” Not that it helped Rufus all that much, but having a sense of place grounded him. He started to let go of the bars and make to climb down, but a car sped down the street and brakes screeched as it came to a sudden stop in front of the auto shop. Rufus held his breath, but when the passenger door opened, he let out a sob and shouted, “Sam!”
Ophelia slammed shut the driver’s door and moved around the backside of the car. “Hey, Red,” she called.
“I’m locked inside,” Rufus called back.
“Did you try a key?”
“Don’t be an asshole!”
Ophelia jabbed a finger in the air, but even with the distance between them, Rufus could feel it drilling into his chest. “It’s a fucking garage. Are there any tools?”
“I don’t—” Rufus glanced over his shoulder into the dimness where shapes of machinery could be made out. “Let me check.” He climbed off the crate, down from the table, and moved into the dark corners of the garage.
Rufus found a Craftsman toolbox nearly as tall as himself. He started opening the drawers, the top ones empty but for greasy paper towels and a lone wrench covered in rust. He tried the bottom cabinet next and found an electric hacksaw. He swore under his breath, grabbed it, and carried it to the rolling gate with the padlock. He felt around the wall for a moment before finding a power socket. He plugged the saw in, and it roared to life. Macho man tools were so not Rufus’s area of expertise, and he really didn’t want to lose a thumb, thank you very much, but Sam was on the other side of that door….
He crouched down and put the teeth to the padlock, and it tore through the metal in no time. Rufus turned the hacksaw off, pulled the lock free, grabbed the handle for a second time, and lifted the out-of-date security gate enough that someone could slip underneath with a bit of wiggling. He gave it another heft, stopping less than halfway when the door got stuck and his head was hurting so badly that he thought he might vomit.
A moment later, Sam squeezed under the rolling door. As the big man came up onto his feet, he took in
Rufus with one rapid glance, grabbed him, and pulled him tight. When Ophelia shimmied under the door, Sam released Rufus and said to him, “Took you long enough.”
Rufus pointed at the hacksaw. “I’m not a fucking lumberjack.”
Sam rolled his eyes and held out a hand for Ophelia. “I guess I got confused. Those big arms. Those jacked shoulders. Anybody could have made the same mistake.”
Ophelia got to her feet with Sam’s assistance. “Both of you, can it.” She studied Rufus. “You’re not here alone, right?”
Rufus started to shake his head but thought better of it. “No. The kids are upstairs.”
“Where’s the guy you knocked out?” she asked.
“I zip-tied Bruno to a radiator in the storage room. He’s not dead, but I had to knock him out. It was self-defense, I swear to God.”
Ophelia unholstered her weapon and held a hand up. “Don’t get all panicky.”
Rufus nodded. He squeezed Sam’s hand, let go, and motioned for the two to follow him upstairs. He took each step carefully, slower than even twenty minutes ago, because Jesus Christ, his body ached and he was so exhausted from the peaks and crashes of adrenaline. Rufus gripped the handrail until reaching the landing, then pointed, ignoring the shake in his hand. “Bruno’s in that room. The kids in this one.”
Sam moved toward the room where Rufus had cuffed Bruno, opened the door, and went in hard and fast, gun in his hand. From where Rufus stood, he watched Sam through the doorway. The big man moved around the room, inspecting Bruno first and then surveying everything else. After a minute, Sam came back and nodded.
“Didn’t believe me?” Rufus asked.
Sam grunted. “Ask me again when you can walk a straight line.”
Ophelia moved past the two, weapon at low-ready. She backed up against the wall beside the partially open door, took a quick glance inside, then lowered her gun. “My God.”
“I don’t know if that’s all of them,” Rufus said as Ophelia took a step into the room with the kids. “But they’re so fucking scared.”
Instead of moving to check, as he had with Bruno, Sam just shifted his weight, his eyes restless on Rufus.
Feeling Sam’s gaze, Rufus cast him a sideways look. He reached out to take Sam’s hand again, but froze when the sound of shrieking metal—the rusted rolling gate—echoed all the way upstairs.
And then came voices and footsteps.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sam froze when metal screeched below them. His first thought was of the door that they had left partially raised. His second thought was of Heckler—and whoever else she might have brought with her.
When he looked at Ophelia, she said, “The stairs.”
Nodding, Sam moved with her toward the stairs. In one hand, he held the Beretta, keeping the muzzle pointed at the ground for the moment—although he didn’t think that would last long. With the other hand, he motioned Rufus back.
The stairs were a natural choke point. Sam couldn’t do anything about the fact that he had managed to get himself and Rufus—and Ophelia, for what it mattered—trapped on the second floor of Dino’s Body Repair. It was a stupid mistake, the result of stupid decisions. One of them should have stayed below and kept watch. Instead, worry over Rufus had led Sam to make mistakes. He hoped they weren’t the mistakes that would cost all of them their lives.
The layout was simple: the main floor of the body shop, with the rolling door; a dog-leg staircase, a landing interrupting the steps halfway so that the stairs could turn and come back; and then the second-floor landing, where Sam and Rufus and Ophelia held their ground. The second-floor landing was basically a hallway. On one side of the stairs, it ran for about twenty-four inches before ending in painted concrete blocks. Just a shallow niche, it offered enough cover that Ophelia darted forward and took up position there, her shoulder against the wall. Sam took the other side of the stairwell, where the hallway ran toward the two doors: the junk room where Rufus’s buddy was cuffed to the radiator, and the room where the kids were being held. Sam gave Rufus one last glance, waving him back again, mouthing, The kids.
Rufus gave Sam two middle fingers, but obediently moved into the room.
Before Sam could do anything else, footsteps came toward the staircase, echoing off the painted concrete. Sam’s heart moved into his throat; he thought about hummingbirds. Twelve hundred beats per minute. Hummingbirds had fuck-all on him right then, and most of that had to do with Rufus being in danger. How long had it been since Sam had needed to qualify at the range? Eight months? Ten? How bad had the tremors gotten since then, now that he was off the meds? How likely was he to put a bullet in the linoleum instead of center mass on Heckler? Fuck. He blew out a breath. Fuck.
Below, a figure moved into view. Mousy brown ponytail. Department store pantsuit, accessorized today by some sort of brooch on the collar. Bridget Heckler put her back to the wall as she came up the stairs; she had a gun in her hand.
“Stop,” Sam said.
Heckler stopped, but the gun floated like smoke, maybe just five degrees, but it was five degrees more than Sam liked.
“Drop the fucking gun and get on the fucking ground,” Sam shouted.
Ophelia was on her phone, her words clipped, concise, voice carrying enough that Sam could pick up her badge number, cross-streets, officer-involved shooting, like she already knew which way this was going to go down.
“Calm down,” Heckler called back. “Everybody calm down. Rufus? You up there? Am I talking to Sam? That’s your name, right? Everybody needs to stay really calm right now.”
“Sure,” Sam said, finger slick and steady against the trigger guard. “I’m calm. Just like Marcus was calm before you killed him. I said put down that fucking gun.”
Rufus, crouched low, crept from the kids’ room to call back, “I’m still here. You kidnapped me. I want that on record. Officer Hayes, hear that? I was kidnapped.”
Ophelia shoved her phone into her pocket and made a quick motion for Rufus to get out of the way.
He flipped her off too.
“Officer Hayes,” Heckler said. “This is Bridget Heckler. I’m a sergeant with Major Cases. Come out here so we can talk. You’re up there with two very dangerous men.”
Ophelia looked at Sam and Rufus again, but she didn’t move from her position. “An unarmed CI was here against his will,” she returned. “He’s been hurt and needs medical attention. And now you’re here, sergeant. Who called you? How’d you know about this place?”
Heckler spoke in a low voice; Sam couldn’t catch the words, but the fact that Heckler had brought backup made the odds even worse. Then, lowering her gun, Heckler held up her free hand. “There have been some really serious misunderstandings. I think we can figure this out if we can—”
Her hand whipped up, and she squeezed off two shots faster than Sam had expected. Only reflex and training saved his life. He was already pulling back when her gun came up. The first bullet chipped the corner of the wall Sam was hiding behind. He lost track of the second.
Opposite Sam, Ophelia took advantage of the lull in Heckler’s shots to poke her head and gun around the corner and fire once. Heckler swore. Sam couldn’t see what she was doing, but he saw her next shot punch into the cement blocks near Ophelia’s hiding spot. Steps rang out on the stairs.
Sam knew what Heckler was doing; he would have done it himself if he had to take the higher ground against an armed enemy. Heckler was laying down suppressing fire—a fancy way of saying she was trying to blow their heads off, but she’d be happy with just keeping them from moving or returning fire. While Sam and Ophelia tried to keep from getting shot, Heckler’s partner would move up the stairs.
In the next lull, Sam peered around the wall to shoot and then, almost immediately, withdrew again. His glimpse of the stairwell made him swear under his breath: a middle-aged man with a bad comb-over had made his way to the first landing.
Lampo. Fucking Lampo.
Jake’s partner had been double
-dealing the whole time. For a moment, Sam struggled with overwhelming rage at having been duped. Then, with an effort, he forced himself to focus on the situation at hand. Clinically. Tactically. Lampo was frozen behind the railing, which offered a modicum of cover, but when Sam shot, he was going to start moving again. Ophelia must have understood, too, because she followed Sam’s shot with one of her own.
“Keep coming, fuckfaces,” Sam shouted. “As soon as Lampo moves off that landing, I’m going to give him a third fucking eye.”
Ophelia’s voice was cool in spite of the adrenaline tremor running through it. “Not if I do first.”
Sam grinned in spite of himself. He took a few short breaths. On three, he was going to try again, see if he could wing Lampo, or at least flush him out so Ophelia could take care of him. One. Two.
Heavy, running steps came from behind Sam, and for a crazy moment, he imagined Rufus rushing him for a bear hug. Sam barely had long enough to glance over his shoulder and register a big, ugly fucker with a nose that had been broken several times in the past. The guard, he realized. The one Rufus had called Bruno, the one who was supposed to be cuffed to a radiator. All this flashed through his mind the moment before the guy crashed into him and they went sprawling on the landing.
The impact drove the breath from Sam’s lungs, and he tried to suck in air. The guy on top of Sam didn’t give him a chance. Grabbing Sam’s head in both hands, he raised it up and then slammed it against the thin linoleum—and the concrete underneath.
Sam’s world went wavy. Then it went black by degrees, like somebody running his hand on a bank of light switches. Things came back together more slowly, and the mixture of pain and consciousness was accompanied, a moment later, by shock.
Sam wasn’t dead.
He just wasn’t sure what the fuck was going on.
The shock of red was the first thing Sam was able to focus on—a beacon of light surrounded by drab nothingness. Then the red took on a face, shoulders, arms—and then it was Rufus on top of Bruno, wrapping his arm around the brute’s thick neck and yanking backward as hard as he could.