They were out.
But now that they were no longer concerned for their imminent deaths, the path ahead was no longer clear. They could retreat to the station to go over traffic cameras, trying to spot and then track down the killer’s vehicle. That option seemed the best of their available paths forward, but it would take far too long.
Now that Bill had been murdered, it seemed possible that Trey was the next intended victim. If that were the case, Darc did not have time to backtrack.
Mala seemed to be taking the same logical route, albeit several steps behind. “What can we do now?” she coughed, as she looked around the alleyway, apparently to get her bearings.
Darc began to speak, but then he saw that Janey was gesturing at Mala. It appeared that she was asking for paper and something with which to write. Once Mala understood the request, she dug around inside her purse, producing a scrap of paper and a pen.
Janey dropped to the ground, using a cardboard box lying against the wall as a surface on which she could place the drawing. Within moments, she had sketched in the essential characteristics of what she was attempting to communicate.
Darc stared at the picture and then began moving toward the car as quickly as he could. He heard Mala as she scrambled to grab Janey and follow along behind as best as she was able. Darc wanted to be more cognizant of these two very important individuals behind him, but there was a clock ticking down in his head. That clock was a marker of Trey’s impending death.
And Darc knew exactly where they had to go.
*
Trey sighed as the killer opened up the door to the trunk, and there, framed behind him, was the Space Needle. Yeah, Trey’d been right. That’s where they’d been headed.
The Space Needle and Trey had a love-hate relationship. Okay, no, that wasn’t really true. It was more of a hate-hate relationship.
It was the place that every one of his visiting-from-out-of-state friends wanted to see, so Trey had been there more times than he could count. But that didn’t account for the hate half of the hate-hate.
That was due to a certain girl that Trey had invited up to meet him before prom his senior year of high school. It was the coolest way he could think of to ask her out. He had thought he was being all romantic, standing there with flowers in a suit. Trey. In a suit. In high school.
But when he’d gone in for the kiss, all he’d gotten in return was a slap.
Trey had gone stag to the prom with a bunch of his buddies who ended up getting blitzed and deciding that Trey didn’t deserve to be wearing pants. He’d ended up walking home, half naked, at two in the morning.
So no, the Space Needle wasn’t Trey’s favorite place on earth.
As his captor dragged Trey out of the trunk, Trey discovered that his limbs had begun functioning again. He wiggled his feet and his hands, wincing at the pins and needles that shot down his limbs.
“I see that the Succinylcholine has begun to wear off,” his abductor purred. “I’m glad. I would hate to have to carry you to the top of the Needle.”
Trey made an experimental fist with his hand and failed miserably. There was no strength in his extremities. His kidnapper must have seen the aborted movement, as he chuckled in his throat as he strapped what looked like a large pack onto his back.
“I would recommend that you not attempt any sort of attack on me, or any escape for yourself, for that matter. The entire facility has been rigged with C-4, and I’m holding a dead man’s switch.” He lifted up his hand, holding up a black device with a lever he held depressed with his thumb. A blinking red light flashed on the top of the box. “Attack me and the whole place blows. Try to run, and the same thing happens. Whatever you do, just remember that you hold a good many lives in your quite incapable hands.”
Trey felt his heart sink into his shoes. Fantastic. There was no way to get out of this one, whatever this one ended up being. If the Needle fell, even at this relatively late hour, so many people would die. There were always crowds surrounding the Needle, even well after hours.
The man grabbed Trey by the shoulder and whipped him around, frog-marching him toward the tall structure. They passed a sign that stated that the Needle was currently closed for what they called “facility upgrades.” Looking up, Trey could see that there was scaffolding surrounding the lower dish portion of the Needle.
But then they were inside the building, passing by the security station where three dead guards stared out at them, a bullet hole in the center of each of their foreheads. They looked to have been dead for a few minutes, at least. Trey found himself wondering if his captor had an accomplice.
Moving past the desk, the man pulled Trey past the barrier that led to the elevators. He shoved Trey inside the open door, following immediately and pushing the button for ascent.
That was the other thing about the Space Needle. Trey didn’t like heights.
Okay, he didn’t hate heights like some people. He didn’t freeze up or hyperventilate or anything. He just didn’t like them. They made him nervous. For Trey, self-preservation was generally a pretty big deal, and heights seemed to violate a sense of what Trey liked to call a comfortable safe-zone.
And traveling to the top of the Space Needle with a homicidal maniac? His comfortable safe-zone was definitely violated. Strangely enough, now that he was no longer chained to the bed, Trey found that his desire to taunt his captor had grown exponentially tinier.
The elevator finally opened up, and after being shoved through several doors that Trey had never known existed, he felt something truly troubling. Trey felt the wind. On his face.
They were on the outside of the Needle.
They were on the other side of the glass windows from the dining area, right next to the lower supports that held the dish of the Space Needle up. Trey could feel the swaying of the large metal structure as the wind pushed against it.
“Well,” Trey mumbled. “This doesn’t look anything like the gift shop.”
Trey’s abductor took a deep breath of the air, gazing out into the night sky. “He that soweth discord among brethren. And your blood will be sown into Seattle’s earth to plant the beginning of a new era. An epoch where the righteous shall fear nothing, but the wicked shall fear for their lives.”
“My blood will be sown? What the hell does that mean?” Trey glanced over the edge, feeling the world spin around him as he did so. “I don’t suppose you mean that you’re gonna cut my hand a little and bleed down, do you?”
“No,” the man replied as he pushed Trey over the edge.
Falling into the blackness, Trey caught sight of the night view from the top of the Space Needle. Even plummeting to his death, he couldn’t help but think that it was one of the most beautiful sights he’d ever seen in his life.
CHAPTER 28
Mala held Janey’s picture in her hand, observing what a wonderful job the little girl had done in depicting the famous Seattle landmark. Although she wasn’t quite so sure why Janey had drawn a picture of her stuffed bear climbing up the side of it.
They were on their way up the elevator, having spotted, parked in the lot, the 1998 Chevrolet Impala that had been the vehicle that Father John’s accomplice had used to take Janey away from the hospital. It seemed impossible that the occurrence had been only days ago.
But as they moved up toward the dish of the Space Needle, Janey suddenly cried out, pointing out the window of the elevator. Mala whipped her head around to see a figure fall over the side of the dish, slamming its torso against an outer bar of the scaffolding surrounding the circular structure.
Somehow, the person managed to wrap an arm around the piping. As the elevator continued its climb upward, Mala caught a glimpse of the person’s face.
It was Trey.
“Darc!” Mala screamed, jabbing a finger at the bald detective’s partner, perched so precariously six hundred feet above the ground. Even as she watched, she saw Trey lose his grip on the railing and slip down to the crook in his elbow.
He was dangling in the air with nothing below him. Mala could see that he was trying to swing himself to a bar that was nearer to the platform that had been built for the workers, but it was just out of reach.
Darc waited until the elevator was just level with the scaffolding, then pushed the emergency stop. The elevator cage ground to a halt, and Darc pushed the doors open, the tendons and veins in his neck standing out in sharp contrast against his skin.
The wind from outside whipped through the supporting girders and entered into the elevator, causing Mala and Janey’s hair to snake up and around their heads. Mala pushed the little girl to the farthest corner of the elevator, keeping her as far away from the opening as possible.
Darc turned back to face Mala, his face a mask of concentration. “There is a ledge here that leads out to the scaffolding. I need you to go help my partner.”
For a moment, Mala couldn’t make sense of what Darc was asking her. Then, in a burst of understanding, it became clear. Darc wanted Mala to climb out of the elevator.
“What? Why? I don’t—” she began.
“You can better navigate the smaller spaces in between the girders,” Darc answered, cutting her off. “In addition, I must travel up to the next level.”
“You’re leaving me here?”
“You and Janey both,” Darc confirmed.
“You… but… what…?” Mala sputtered. This was insanity.
Then she felt a soft hand slip into hers. Janey was at her side, looking up into Mala’s face. Her expression was gentle and radiated confidence. Confidence in her savior, the bald detective who had saved her so many times from certain death.
Even though Mala could not share that unshakeable faith, Janey’s calmness seemed to spread up through her hand, filling Mala’s body with peace. When she turned back to face Darc, her mind was settled.
He nodded at the little girl and then redirected his attention to Mala. “The killer is above us, and cannot come down without passing near this point. But if he gets to the other elevator first, he could put both Trey’s and your lives in danger. I must stop that from happening. Now.”
Mala recognized the urgency in Darc’s voice. The fact that she could identify that emotion in his tone was significant. They needed to move, and it needed to be right away.
Scooting toward the open door, Mala looked out and realized that the trip to the scaffolding was not going to be quite as terrifying as she’d feared. The girder that led to the repair structure was at least a meter in width, and there were plenty of other supports that she could use as handholds.
She grabbed ahold of Janey’s hand and began moving out toward the scaffolding, a mere five meters away. They should be able to get there without any incident.
That was, of course, if they could manage to do so without looking down.
*
As the elevator reached the top of the Space Needle, Darc allowed the bands of light to extend out around the area, looking for the most direct route to the point just above where Trey was hanging. They compensated for the gradual rotation of the restaurant portion of the Needle, which revolved a complete 360 degrees every forty-seven minutes.
The glowing strands pointed out a path, which Darc followed without hesitation. But even as he ran toward the approaching confrontation, he found that his focus was on the three individuals he had left below.
It had been the correct decision. There was an 87 percent probability that this was the right course of action. And yet, the thoughts of his partner swaying precariously in the wind with Mala and Janey risking life and limb to assist him preyed on Darc’s mind in a manner he had never before experienced.
All these thoughts were pushed from his mind moments later, however, as Darc spotted a figure entering through an open service door that led from the restaurant out onto the lower supports of the saucer. The man was spitting curses at the general air.
The man was Bryce Van Owen.
Darc had his gun out and was firing within seconds. After the first shot ricocheted off the wall next to the Deputy Attorney, Bryce dove behind a table. He called out from the relative safety of his hiding spot.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Detective Darcmel.” He held up a hand, which was holding a black box with a blinking red light. “See this? If my thumb comes off of this button here along the side, this whole tower will go boom. And we wouldn’t want that to happen, now would we?”
Lowering the gun, Darc placed the weapon back in its holster. After a moment of no further firing, Bryce lifted his head up above the surface of the table. He caught sight of Darc and smiled.
“Now, that’s better.” He stood and began approaching Darc, his one hand not holding the trigger reaching into a pocket and withdrawing a metal rod. A whip of his wrist, and the rod extended into a fighting baton with a ball on the end of the telescoping arm.
Darc scanned the room, setting in his mind the various obstacles and impediments to movement that existed. This would be an unpleasant fight, especially with the extended reach the baton gave Bryce and the threat of the released trigger.
In an attempt to slow their confrontation long enough for Darc to finish his assessment, he questioned the attorney. “You plan on destroying yourself along with this building?”
“Oh, no. I’m not dying tonight. I just need to go down and take care of that pesky partner of yours and then I parachute off the top house.” He gestured over his shoulder to the pack he was wearing. “Who would have thought that Keane would be resourceful enough to grab ahold of the scaffolding on his way down? I find that I’m equal parts impressed and pissed off.”
“Yes, Trey can be… surprising,” Darc assented.
“Did you really forgive him for sleeping with your wife?” Bryce pressed, his face contorted into an unrecognizable expression.
“I did.”
“Well, Darc. That’s more than I could do.” He whistled through his teeth, then gave Darc a grin. “Didn’t expect to see me here, I’m guessing?”
“No, I did not.” The lines of logic straightened out, pathways merging together and other gateways closing. The images clicked together, forming a new pattern. “But I see now that it could only be you.”
“Yeah, that hindsight’s a bitch, ain’t she?” Bryce crooned, hefting the baton.
“The knife?” Darc asked.
“Hey, Bill isn’t the only guy who’s ever been in the service. And I’ve got buddies all over the Seattle area. Didn’t take much to snag one of their extras.”
The threads of light continued to snake around the Deputy Attorney, illuminating the gray areas of emotional content contained within. “You had a connection with each of the victims,” Darc asserted, all the while continuing to assess the dimensions of the room for the upcoming conflict. It was spacious, if narrow, but there appeared to be little he could use as a weapon to offset the baton.
“Of course. All cases I had worked, in one capacity or another. All corrupt and evil individuals, ripe and filled with decay. Ready for the threshing.” Bryce whirled the baton above his head, apparently testing its heft. From the way he handled the weapon, it was clear he was familiar with it.
“And Bill Harris?”
“Ah, Bill,” Van Owen caressed the name with his mouth. “Bill made the mistake of perjuring himself on a case I was trying. He had a client he swore he was with at the time a crime was committed. Perfect alibi… the guy was in the middle of a nasty divorce. But he was guilty. I knew it. Bill knew it.”
Darc had watched Bryce fight before. The flowing strands of light wrapped themselves around the lawyer, probing, testing. The addition of the baton and the trigger would make the conflict difficult, but the assessment was positive. Darc could win.
“And what of Mala?” Darc pressed, seeking to distract the man.
“Mala. Yes. It would come down to her, wouldn’t it?” Bryce cracked his neck, rolling his head to one side and then the other. “You love her, of course.”
“I do.�
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“Well, then, let’s fight for her, shall we?” Bryce asked, and without changing his tone in the slightest, pounced on Darc, the baton whipping through the air.
Darc spun to the side, but not before the baton caught him on the shoulder, rendering his right arm dead and numb. That was impossible. Darc had calculated the speed with which Bryce could attack, but this had been much faster.
“Surprised, Darc?” Bryce purred. “Why do you think I set up that little bar fight? You don’t really think I was protecting a cousin, do you?” He chuckled, the sound not much more than a rumble in his throat. “I knew that this moment would come sooner or later, and I wanted you overconfident and exposed. I know you, Darc. I know your capabilities.” He bared his teeth at Darc, a rictus of a smile that was more animal than human. “But you don’t know mine.”
Once again, he lunged at Darc, who was rapidly recalculating. His strategy before had been based off of misinformation, but Darc rarely made the same mistake twice. Instead of trying to dodge, Darc took another blow on his useless arm, moving in close enough to headbutt the lawyer in the face while wrapping his hand around the black device’s trigger, holding it in place.
Bryce reeled back, clutching at his occipital bone, pulling Darc along with him. Darc clawed at the man’s eyes with his left hand, looking for any advantage. Van Owen swiped his hand away, following up with a sweep of his baton toward Darc’s throat. Darc managed to duck the attack, but could not evade the follow-up that came from the man’s knee, striking Darc full in the gut.
Darc retched, falling backward, releasing his grip on the hand holding the device. Any attack he now made on the attorney could cause the entire Needle to explode.
Bryce wiped away a stream of blood that was pouring out of his nose. “What are you going to do now, Darckie Darc? You lose. The better man wins.” He lashed out with his baton, catching Darc’s injured arm. Darc felt the bone break under the impact.
Using the pain as an impetus, Darc fell to the ground. As Bryce began to move in for a follow-up attack, Darc swept his legs around, catching the lawyer mid-stride.
7th Sin: The Sequel to the #1 Hard Boiled Mystery, 9th Circle (Book 2 of the Darc Murders Series) Page 30