by Tyler Porter
Vengeance Before Virtue
By Tyler Porter
Table of Contents
Title Page
A Word from the Author
Follow the Journey
Chapter 1: Going Home
Chapter 2: Old Wounds
Chapter 3: New Friends
Chapter 4: Times Have Changed
Chapter 5: The Boys in Blue
Chapter 6: Voice of Reason
Chapter 7: A Knock at the Door
Chapter 8: The First of Many
Chapter 9: Riddle Me This
Chapter 10: New Allies, Hidden Enemies
Chapter 11: Shades of Crimson
Chapter 12: A Father’s Love
Chapter 13: Two Sides of the Law
Chapter 14: In Plain Sight
Chapter 15: Ghosts of the Past
Chapter 16: Reunion
Chapter 17: The Mystery Continues
Chapter 18: Massacre in Alta Vista
Chapter 19: Stay Awake
Chapter 20: Where It All Began
Chapter 21: Under the Hood
Chapter 22: Moving On
Chapter 23: Blood Stains Forever
Follow the Journey
A Word from the Author
I want to take this opportunity to sincerely thank you for taking the time to read my second novel, Vengeance Before Virtue. The idea that someone would give their time, which we have so little of, to my work is truly breathtaking; I appreciate it every day. I plan to continue to write as a passion and a career for the foreseeable future, and your support is my inspiration as well as my motivation. I truly hope that you enjoy this new story, and that it keeps you guessing and anticipating until the unbelievable end. I hope you will consider following along with me as I continue to release new stories in the future. I have developed a presence on multiple platforms so that you can connect with me wherever best suits you. Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart, and I cannot wait to hear your thoughts on Vengeance Before Virtue!
Follow the Journey
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“We all live in suspense from day to day; in other words, we are the hero of our own story.”
-Mary McCarthy
This book is dedicated to my friends, family, and colleagues who have supported me in this dream and journey. This path is not an easy one, but I am the most stubborn person that I know, and I don’t often enjoy when things are easy. I expect this to be a long, uphill battle, and I am looking forward to it. These amazing people in my life have embraced that chaos with me, and I will never be able to tell them enough how much it means to me. I love you all. This is for you.
Chapter 1: Going Home
“Hi Mom.”
He hadn’t said the words in so many years that they felt odd as they left his lips. Almost like he had mumbled some other language. Andi and Riley stood silently behind him as they watched the event unfold. None of them knew what to expect, what might come next. Sherry O’Bannon was a short, petite woman, with brunette hair that fell to just above her shoulders and green eyes that sparkled always. At this moment, they sparkled with confusion. She wore tan capris, white and blue tennis shoes, and a Cozumel t-shirt⸺her usual cleaning attire, he remembered. Much to his surprise, of all the things he could imagine her saying, she said nothing. She simply moved to the side creating an avenue into the home.
He slowly stepped inside the small, yet well-lit, living room. The furniture was old, but in good condition. The end tables, coffee table, and book shelves in the corner were exactly where they had been the last time he saw them. The brown carpet, freshly vacuumed, was also original. The only thing that he could see a noticeable difference in were the walls. The old flowery wallpaper that he remembered had been disposed of, and the interior walls of the home sported a neutral tan. He stood in front of the couch and watched as the girls took in the scene. His mother had not looked at them since they had walked through the door. Instead, she was staring out into the street, the door still standing open.
“Mom?” He said again. Nothing. “I know that it’s been a long time...and I....”
On the trip there, he had had so much in his head that he wanted to say. So many things he wanted to apologize for. So many “I love you”s that he’d missed and wanted to make up for. Yet, there in the moment, standing in front of his mother, the woman who raised him, the woman who he had been so close with growing up, he couldn’t find the words. Hard as he tried, they refused to come. The silence lingered for several moments before Andi stepped toward Sherry and spoke.
“Hello, Mrs. O’Bannon. My name is Andi,” she pulled her daughter close to her, “and this my little girl Riley...we’re friends of your son’s.”
Her eyes remained glued to the street. Matt walked toward her, one slow step at a time, and reached out his hand. He let it rest, gently, on her shoulder. She turned to him and the tears became visible. Her lip quivered as her mascara seemed to melt out of place. The emotion that she had been living with for over a decade was pouring out all at once. Finally, her damp eyes rose to meet his, and when they did, the tears came even harder. She fell forward into his arms and let out a primal scream into his chest. His polo dampened as she cried into his body.
At first, he left his hands on her shoulders, unsure of how to respond. It had been so many years. He had only recently remembered how to let someone in when he met Andi, but even so, this type of overwhelming emotion was not something he was used to. Carefully, as if he might break her, he moved his arms around her, and leaned his chin down on top of her head. Emotions of his own began to surface, and he fought hard to keep his eyes from watering, but it was no use. He felt the warm droplets slide down each cheek.
“I’ve missed you so much!” she moaned into his sternum. “I didn’t think I would ever see my son again!”
“I know, Mom. I know. I am so sorry. I’m here now,” he said softly. After allowing the embrace to go on for several minutes, he leaned away from her, “I have two ladies here that I really want you to meet.”
He guided her toward Andi and Riley, who were both standing, uncomfortably, on the other side of the coffee table. Andi was looking around as if she were appreciating the décor of the living room, and Riley was looking straight at the floor, clutching the stuffed dog that Matt had given her the night he’d met her. Sherry slowly drew her face away from Matt’s body and turned her head toward them.
“Mom, this is Andi and her daughter Riley. They are... very important people in my life and... we’ve become a family. I wanted them to meet the rest of my family⸺”
His mother looked up at him. “Family?” The word sounded odd, like she hadn’t said it in centuries.
“Family,” he repeated.
She looked back at the girls and her eyes swelled with water once again. She said no words at first, just walked toward them and stopped when she was no more than a foot away from them.
“Well, anyone, who my boy considers family, is more than welcome in my home,” she said.
She leaned in and hugged Andi who was quick to accept. They shared a long embrace before Sherry bent down and knelt in front of Riley whose eyes were still glued to the floor. She looked at the little girl, and then down at her stuffed dog. A wide grin appeared on her face and she looked back up at Riley.
“Let me guess, my Matthew gave you that dog, didn’t he?” she asked. Riley gradually lifted her gaze in amazement.
“Yeah...he got him for me cuz I can’t have a dog in Mommy’s apartment,” Riley said while bringing the stuffed animal
up and hugging it against her. “How did you know?”
“Well, I know because Matthew used to have a stuffed dog just like that when he was little.”
“He did!?” Riley squealed.
“He certainly did, and he brought it everywhere with him. Its name was Maxie. What’s your dog’s name?”
“INSERT DOG NAME FROM BOOK ONE”
“Well that is a fine name. Yes ma’am, Matthew wasn’t able to have a dog at that time either, but we have one now. Would you like to meet her?” Riley’s eyes nearly doubled in size.
“Yeah!” she squealed.
Sherry stood up and walked toward the kitchen, but then turned right and disappeared into the hallway. Moments later, she returned and accompanying her, standing at her side, was a tall, black, muscular German Shepherd. If not for the collar, Matt would have sworn it was a wolf. While standing on all fours, the creature’s head would reach almost to Sherry’s shoulders, and it had paws that looked like they would fit better on a bear than a dog. The canine’s eyes went straight to Riley, who stood terrified. As Sherry approached the little girl, the dog calmly followed at her side. She stopped a short distance from Riley, and the dog stopped too.
“Free girl, Mya,” Sherry said.
Mya moved her massive paws and stepped toward Riley. Matt and Andi looked at each other for a moment, neither knowing what to make of what was happening in front of them. Riley was clearly terrified of the dog, but Sherry O’Bannon seemed perfectly calm and sure of the situation. Mya had to lower her head to be eye-level with Riley. She studied her face for only an instant before unleashing what could only have been described as a lick attack. Riley giggled uncontrollably as the dog licked every inch of her face. She dropped the stuff dog and wrapped her arms around the huge animal.
“Good girl Mya,” Sherry said. “Now go show Riley your toys.”
With that, Mya moved quickly toward the kitchen, and Riley stumbled after her. Sherry smiled at Matt and Andi reassuringly. The three of them sat on the couch and began to catch up on everything that they had missed out on in each other’s lives. It truly was if things had never changed. Matt and Andi chose not to go into details about the killings in Chicago, the death of Will Chaser, or about Matt’s former-executive-assistant-turned-homicidal-stalker, Claire Johnstone. There was a huge reason that Matt had left all those years ago in the first place, and the last thing that he wanted was to return only to fill his mother in on the fact that he had gotten himself tied up in more murder investigations.
After a bit, Mya and Riley returned and jumped up onto the love seat together. They had both made a new friend, and both seemed happy about it. This was particularly obvious from the way that Riley was curled up into Mya; she almost disappeared in the heap of dark muscle, but Mya too seemed comfortable with her new pal next to her. The two of them quickly fell into a catnap as the adults continued talking. The conversation was appreciated, because it had been so long since he had heard his mother’s voice; yet Matt was also slightly confused. The entire time they had been there, his mother had not once mentioned his father or his sister. She was sharing every story she had about Matt when he was little, but none at all about what their lives had been like since he left.
As his mother continued, he thought he heard the sound of a car door shutting in the driveway. He nonchalantly kept moving his eyes to the front door, but no one came. He had all but pushed the distraction out of his mind when he heard a noise come from the kitchen. The back door to the porch was in the hall past the kitchen. Suddenly that old familiar feeling was back. Like something wasn’t quite right. He stared past his mother to the kitchen opening, but again there was nothing. He forced the idea from his mind. He decided he was just still not quite over everything that had happened before they left Chicago. His mother hadn’t skipped a beat and was in the middle of telling a story of how Matt had gotten suspended from school in the seventh grade for spitting his gum into his math teacher’s beard because he had told Matt to spit it out. Matt chuckled at the memory, and he was actually surprised that he was able to remember something that had happened so long ago. He was rolling over some other old memories from those days when the creak came from upstairs. The other two didn’t seem to notice, but he was sure someone was upstairs. The stairs were in the living room, but they also went a second way down the back into the mud room which had a doorway into the kitchen.
“I am going to go use the restroom; I’ll be right back,” he said. Andi had to take a breath from laughing at his childhood dilemmas to answer.
“Okay...” she said, taking a deep breath between laughs, “we will be fine right here!” She giggled as she turned back toward Sherry, eager to hear more about Matt’s younger years.
Matt went through the kitchen, because there was a bathroom in the hallway at the back of it, and he did not want to raise any alarm by using the stairs in the living room. He took each step very carefully, as he remembered all too well how the stairs creaked and moaned with old age. He recalled many nights as a teenager, trying to sneak out only to be caught halfway down the stairs because of the noisy commute to his escape. He arrived at the top of the stairs which led to an open area that contained a couch, a coffee table, and a recliner. From there, there were hallways going in both directions: two bedrooms and a bathroom down the hallway on the right, one bedroom and one bathroom down the hallway on the left.
His gut was telling him to go to the bathroom to the left, but his heart was begging him to refuse. The bedroom down that hallway had belonged to Mariah, his younger sister. He had not stepped foot into that room since before she was raped by Michael Vincent. Since before the murder, and before he had left it all behind. He came very close to choosing to go right, but then the creak in the floor came from the bedroom to his left. He quickly moved to it and hurried into the bedroom. Even though no human being was there to attack him, he still felt as if a rapidly moving freight train had hit him.
All of the pictures on the walls, the pictures he remembered, the pictures of their family, of their adventures, of their history. Pictures of him and Mariah on her first camping trip. Photos of their family trip to an amusement park. Stuffed animals she used to obsess over, and one in particular. His mother hadn’t been lying when she had told Riley about his stuffed dog Maxie. The small, plush toy had once been his prized possession. Then, he grew up and Maxie became a nostalgic keepsake. And then Mariah was born. From the moment she came home from the hospital, something changed in Matt, something inside of him that insisted he make sure nothing bad would ever happen to that little girl.
He would do anything to protect her, or to help her, or to keep her from ever feeling afraid, sad or alone. He became her big brother, her support, and her protector. There was one summer, when he and Mariah had been in the back seat while Sherry drove. They were on their way to meet their father for dinner since the closest restaurant was halfway between their house and his work. Matt would have been around fourteen, right before he had left for the military academy, and Mariah would have been three or four. Another car ran a red light and t-boned their car. Thankfully, no one had been hurt, but for days after the accident, Mariah was a mess.
Anything that happened throughout the day scared her, especially riding in the car. One day, he couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t stand to see her afraid and sad. He went into their attic, found an old cardboard box filled with family mementos, and pulled out the small stuffed dog. He gave him to Mariah and explained to her that Maxie had kept him safe and helped him whenever he had been afraid. He went on to tell her that from that point on, Maxie’s job was to protect her and make sure she wouldn’t be afraid.
Surprisingly, it had worked, and for years it remained her constant, the thing she could always rely on. Matt approached the twin-sized bed and looked over the flowery pattern of the bedding. It matched perfectly with the pink and purple wallpaper that ran the extent of the room. From the very top of the gigantic pile of stuffed animals and pillows, he picke
d up Maxie. The toy had seen better days, and it was clear that it had quite a few years on it. But for the most part, it was exactly as he remembered. He set it back down carefully, exactly where he had found it, and continued searching the room⸺under the bed, behind the curtains, in the closet. He was sure the creaking had come from that room, but there was nothing or no one to be found.
Matt wondered where Mariah was then. He was sure she was not still living in the house; the room was still made up for a teenage girl, not the young woman she would be now. He retreated back to the hallway and shut the door behind him before continuing across to the opposite hallway. He searched the first bedroom, then the second, and again found no sign that anyone had been in either. Paranoid, he thought. You’re fucking paranoid.
He started making his way back down the stairs, careful to take the same stairway once again and reappear from the kitchen. He saw his family as he made his way through the galley-style space, but as he did, it started to become clearer and clearer that something was off. Something was different. They were all exactly where he had left them⸺Mom and Andi on the couch, Riley and Mya on the love seat⸺but they were all silent. They were not speaking to one another, and as he got closer, they all seemed almost posed in their positions. He slowed his pace and studied them as he moved closer. He stepped through the opening into the living room, and the sound of a shotgun cocking stopped him dead. Slowly, he turned his head to the left, and looked past the end of the 20-gauge Remington and up the barrel into the eyes of the man wielding it. His father didn’t so much as blink.
Chapter 2: Old Wounds
“Dad! What the hell are you doing?!” Matt started.
“Shut the fuck up,” He wasn’t angry; he was certain. “What are you doing in my house?”
“It⸺ It’s been a long time. I⸺ I wanted to see my family again.”