by Scott Cook
“Vest, if you’ve got one,” said Flowers. “Sam said you might.”
“Sorry. We’re both outta luck.”
Flowers inspected the Glock. Apparently satisfied, he stuffed it in the belt of his shorts. “All right,” he said. “I’m going in.”
They all watched as he crept toward the open window, scanning constantly with his weapon at the ready. Sam realized then how little he actually know about the cop. Judging by how he was moving, Flowers had advanced training, possibly special weapons and tactics. Their relationship had consisted solely of conversations in safe places; this was something else. This was Flowers at work.
The cop reached the basement window and pulled back the plywood. He dropped his legs through the opening and slid about a foot on his back before stopping abruptly. Sam assumed there was something in his way. A few seconds later, the rest of Flowers’ body followed. He was in.
Sam held his breath. He saw Tess chewing her bottom lip, staring at the side of the building. Beside her, Alex looked completely outside the situation, as if he were having a conversation with himself. Shitbox simply stared.
Less than a minute later, the door near the back swung open a crack. One of Flowers’ hands emerged and made a sharp beckoning motion. Shitbox grabbed a large shotgun – Sam realized with some satisfaction that it was the same one he had used at the Rosebush the day before – and rose up from the ground.
“Get the hell out of here,” he said. “Whatever’s gonna happen in there, you don’t need to be a part of it. Get to someplace safe.”
“What if they’re not all in there?” asked Tess. “What if there are more someplace else?”
“Doesn’t matter. Yer not safe here. Do as I say.”
Shitbox crept forward, but Alex suddenly reached out and clutched his beefy arm.
“Be careful, Shitbox,” he said, wide eyed. “Don’t trust Flowers.”
“I never did.”
“Watch him.” Alex was pleading now. “Do whatever you have to do to keep Angie safe. You promised.”
“Roger that,” the giant said, and then he was gone. He trotted with surprising speed toward the opened door, covering the space in less than ten seconds. A moment later, he disappeared behind it.
Tess looked at Sam with frightened eyes. “What do we do? Shitbox made a good point; what are we supposed to do about anything?”
“Guys,” said Alex.
Sam ran a hand through his hair. He felt a slick line of sweat at his brow. “I don’t know,” he said. “Do we even have time to get away? And what if whoever’s in there takes out Shitbox and Flowers? What happens to Angie?”
“GUYS,” said Alex.
Sam and Tess turned towards him. “What?” asked Tess.
Alex took a shaky breath, let it out. “I recognized Darcy Flowers,” he said. “I mean, his voice. That’s why I told Shitbox to be careful. But he was smarter than us; he already knew not to trust him.”
“What are you talking about?” Sam snapped. He was annoyed now. “What’s your problem with Flowers? He’s here to help.”
Beside him, Tess’s eyes suddenly grew larger than Sam had ever seen them. Her mouth dropped open an inch before she raised a hand to it.
“Oh my God,” she breathed. “That’s why I recognized him. Oh my God.”
Sam looked from her to Alex and then back to her. “Can one of you please tell me what the hell you’re talking about?”
“I’ve talked to Flowers on the phone,” said Alex. “His voice is Tom Ferbey’s voice.”
CHAPTER 36
“That’s insane,” said Sam. He felt suddenly unsteady on his feet. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Tess grabbed him by the arms. The look on her face was manic. “It’s true,” she said. “That’s why I thought I’d interviewed him before; I recognized his voice, but obviously not the rest of him, because I’d never seen him!”
“Maybe you interviewed him over the phone,” said Sam, but he knew he was grasping at straws. “Isn’t that more likely?”
“We’ve been over this, Sam,” she said, pacing the little clearing. “I remember Tom Ferbey’s voice.”
“So do I,” said Alex. “He called me four times. I talked to him for at least ten minutes each time. It was Flowers.”
Sam sat down hard on the dirt, mindless of the dried pine needles jabbing into his rear through the seat of his shorts. A memory was forming in his mind.
“Think about it,” said Tess. “What are the odds that we’d run into him in Lost Lake at the exact moment that we did? If you were to read a twist like that in a James Patterson novel, you’d want your money back.”
Her comment barely registered in Sam’s brain. “He told me to stay away from Crowe,” he muttered. “He said to leave Crowe for the guys with guns.”
“What?”
Sam’s thoughts were cut off by the crash of a shotgun blast inside the building, then another two seconds later. Tess screamed as Sam grabbed her and threw her to the ground beside him. In his peripheral vision, he could see Alex army crawling towards them. Three short, hard pops split the air. Then there was silence.
The three of them huddled together on the ground. Sam’s arms were around Tess; her torso was shaking, and she was breathing in gasps. His own heart was galloping, but his head was clear.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes,” she gasped. “I just need a second.”
Alex looked even more stunned than he had before. “Shotgun and pistol,” he said.
Sam nodded. “That means Shitbox and Flowers both got off rounds.”
“But who hit who?” asked Tess.
“Whom,” Alex said quietly.
Sam slapped him on the side of the face. “Get your head in the game, Dunn!” he snapped. It seemed to help. Alex shook his head; when he looked back at Sam, his eyes were more focused.
“Wake up, soldier,” he said. “Right.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m with you.”
“Good,” said Sam. He let go of Tess and crawled over to the bag, hoping there was still something useful inside. He needn’t have worried. God bless you, Crowe, he thought as he reached in and pulled out a black, short-barreled rifle. The clip jutted out from a slot in front of the trigger guard, and a handle grip was attached below the barrel. An assault rifle, the kind most left-leaning Canadians clucked their tongues over when reading about shootouts in the United States. He’d never fired anything like this on the farm, but he assumed the mechanics were essentially the same. He reached into the back of his shorts, withdrew the Walther pistol, and handed it to Tess. He flipped off the safety.
“Are you okay with this?”
She looked down at the gun. “I think so,” she said. She looked up at him. “I guess I have to be, don’t I?”
The assault rifle was the last of the firearms in the bag. All that was left was some surveillance equipment and half-a-dozen stun grenades. Sam had never seen one before outside of television, but he knew how they worked: pull the pin and toss. It let out an ear-splitting bang and a flash of light that rendered the target effectively deaf and blind for a few minutes without doing any lasting physical harm.
He handed one to Alex. “Know what to do with this?”
Alex turned it over in his hand. “Pull and throw?”
“Yeah. It’s not a gun, but on the bright side, you can’t shoot yourself with it.”
They sat there on the ground together, breathing noisily, for what seemed to Sam like the better part of an eon, though the rational part of his brain told him it was less than two minutes. There was no sign from inside the office.
The cell phone in Tess’s hand jingled to signal the arrival of a new text message, sending an electric jolt up Sam’s spine. The other two reacted the same way. All of them stared down at the device as if it was some sort of alien artifact.
COME IN AND JOIN THE PARTY, the message read. LEAVE THE WEAPONS OUTSIDE AND THE GIRL LIVES.
&n
bsp; CHAPTER 37
The stinging in his eyes drew Crowe out of the tarry blackness of semi-consciousness and into the dusty light of a large room. He blinked several times; it wasn’t the light that stung, it was the liquid pouring down his forehead. Whether blood or sweat, he couldn’t tell. The heat was smothering in here. His head pounded in time with the beat of his heart. The front of his tank was black with blood.
He looked around as his eyes adjusted to the light. He was seated in a vintage boardroom chair, the kind with a wide, flat back, square armrests, and four sturdy chrome legs. His hands were still bound behind his back. He was in a foyer at the top of the stairs. It appeared to have been cleared of a group of old metal desks that had been pushed into groups that sat at odd angles to each other. It was brighter up here, thanks to the banks of transom windows that still streamed dusty daylight into the room from above the larger windows and their plywood covers.
He looked to his right. The dirty blonde wig lay on the floor, looking like the corpse of an underfed cat. Several yards away, farther into the room, Shitbox was lying motionless on his back. Crowe could see three small circles of blood on the left side of his upper chest.
Ah, fuck, he moaned inwardly. His breathing hitched softly. I’m so sorry, big guy.
“Finally awake?” he heard a voice say from above him. “Good.”
He looked up at one of the largest men he’d ever seen; not quite as tall as Orlog, the Romanian giant he’d worked for with the penchant for flipping over Russian automobiles, but certainly as thick. The guy was sweating profusely.
“Your friends will be here in a second,” said the man. “Remember, whatever happens to them is your fault.”
The big man perched his butt against the side of one of the nearby desks, and Crowe could see it wasn’t just the heat that was causing him to sweat; there was a makeshift cloth bandage wrapped around his right thigh. A saucer-sized clot of blood bloomed in the center of the dark fabric.
The man caught him looking and glanced down at the wound himself. “Your sumo buddy got a shot off before I dropped him,” he said. “He was pretty fast for such a fat guy. Hurts like a sonovabitch, but in hindsight, it’s going to come in handy.”
Crowe glared at him contemptuously. “Yeah?” he said. His voice sounded like sandpaper to his own ears. “How’s that?”
“Makes me a lot more sympathetic. It’s a lot easier to believe a story about a shootout when the hero actually gets wounded.”
“Story?” Crowe flexed his hands behind his back, flattening his thumbs against each other. The circulation had slowed, but he hadn’t been reduced to pins and needles quite yet.
“Of course,” said the man. “Brave cop single-handedly takes out dastardly villains in a gun battle. It might even make the network news down in the States.”
Crowe frowned. “You’re the accomplice,” he said. “Of course. It had to have been a cop.”
“Constable Darcy Flowers,” said the man, clapping. “Walsh was right about you. You’re pretty smart.”
“That’s why I get the big bucks.”
“Actually, I think in this case, I got the big bucks. Well, me and my accomplice, as you like to say. I prefer the term ‘partner.’” Flowers pushed off from the desk and limped closer to Crowe. “You know, it didn’t have to come to this. All you had to do was cut your losses and leave town. We never would have found you.”
Crowe flashed a grim smile. “I’m funny that way.”
From behind him, Crowe heard a familiar voice say, “Shut up. Flowers, go downstairs and open the door for our guests.”
CHAPTER 38
Tess held Sam’s hand with a grip stronger than any he’d ever felt as they crossed the yard, up to the side door that Shitbox had walked through minutes earlier. This must be what fathers go through in the delivery room, he thought stupidly. It seemed to him that they were walking incredibly slowly, as if in a dream. Alex was close behind them.
The steel door swung open, and behind it Sam could see Darcy Flowers, holding the door open for them, Glock in hand. He looked pale; rivulets of sweat ran from his cop’s brushcut down the sides of his face. A glance down showed Sam why: he’d been shot in the leg.
Good work, Shitbox, he thought grimly. Too bad you didn’t aim a little higher and to the left, though.
Flowers ushered them into a tight hallway that led to a large, open room. It was punishingly hot inside, though brighter than he’d expected. It still took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the darkness in contrast to the bright sunlight outside. At the end of the room, near the back door of the building, was a staircase to the second floor.
“Up,” said Flowers, motioning to the stairs.
Tess, who had let up on the pressure on his hand, suddenly squeezed it again. Sam gave in to a wild urge and drew the hand to his mouth. He kissed it. She looked at him for a moment before pulling his hand towards her own lips and doing the same.
“Just fucking climb,” Flowers said from behind them.
They reached the foyer at the top of the stairs. It was brighter up here. To his right, Sam saw Crowe seated in a chair, hands behind his back. His eyes were open, but his face was a bloody mess. He’d been worked over bad.
A bit farther away, on the floor beside one of a dozen desks, he could make out a dark figure. His heart dropped as he realized it was Shitbox. Beside him, Tess let out a low gasp, followed by sobs.
“You fuck,” Sam growled. He spun around to face Flowers. “You miserable fuck!”
Flowers flinched, and he drew the Glock to a right angle on his hip like a gunfighter in an old movie. “Don’t think I won’t use this, Sam.”
I scared him, Sam thought with absurd pride. Good.
Flowers pointed them to a group of three chairs about thirty feet from where Crowe sat. Alex took the first, followed by Tess, then Sam. Oceans of dust seemed to waft through the sunbeams that streamed into the room from the transom windows high up on the walls.
“You okay, Crowe?” Sam asked. He knew the answer, but for some reason, asking seemed like an act of defiance.
“Peachy,” Crowe said, grinning. “You?”
“Same.”
Flowers leaned on the edge of an old metal desk that was perched at a thirty-degree angle from the group of chairs. On the surface of the desk sat a Glock and Shitbox’s combat shotgun.
“Hey, Flowers,” said Sam. “Where’d the extra Glock come from?”
“You didn’t believe that line about not bringing my weapon into B.C., did you?” The cop held up the one in his hand. “I had to switch it out once me and Shithead got inside. Wouldn’t do for a cop to shoot a criminal with a gun that’s had the serial number filed off.”
Tess looked up at the big man. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
Flowers touched his nose. “Right the first time.”
“How did you know we were coming here?” Sam asked.
“You told me.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Flowers laughed. It reminded Sam of the times they had sat around chewing the fat and taking shots at each other, but now, it made his stomach turn.
“I think your exact words were ‘avenge my death if it comes to that,’” said the cop.
Sam slammed a hand on the chair. “You did get the message,” he said. “Goddamit.”
“More than you know,” said a familiar voice from behind them. Sam could hear the shoosh of soft-soled shoes along the surface of the old linoleum floor. He turned to his left as a figure walked out of a side office and into the foyer. The man was dressed in a tee-shirt and cargo pants, with a shoulder holster strapped around his upper body. The light from the transoms illuminated a face he knew well.
Sam’s jaw dropped. “What the fuck?” he hissed. It was barely audible, even to his own ears.
From behind him, he heard Alex say, “Hey, Chuck. I was wondering when you were finally going to come out.”
CHAPTER 39
&n
bsp; Chuck Palliser’s hair had started to grow out, and he had the beginnings of a beard on his cheeks, but those golden mountain lion eyes were unmistakable. He sat down on a desk next to Flowers, cocking one leg over the other.
He looked down at Alex, not unkindly. “Like the old movie line, I’m back from the dead and ready to party. The great thing about C4 is it melts everything into a slag heap. Almost impossible to determine human remains. When did you figure it out?”
“First things first: where’s Angie?”
“She’s safe. You have my word. Now spill.”
Alex sighed. He didn’t know what Palliser’s word was worth anymore, but he had to believe she was all right.
“I finally let myself believe it a few minutes ago,” he said. “Right around the time I recognized Flowers’ voice.”
“I wondered if that was what happened,” said Flowers. “I could see something weird going on behind your eyes.”
“How did you put it together?” asked Palliser.
“Looking back now, I should have figured it out sooner.”
“Yeah?”
“How could the person who killed Tom Ferbey have found me so easily? Simple: he followed me.”
Palliser smiled. “I always said you were smart.”
“The part that never occurred to me until just a few minutes ago was how. How could someone know to follow me? Again, the answer was as plain as the nose on my face: he was the one who told me to get lost in the first place.”
Palliser slapped his hands down on his thighs, grinning. Alex could see pink, irritated skin along the surface of his ropy arms. His tattoos had faded significantly.
“Hot damn!” he hollered. “That’s pretty fucking amazing detective work, Alex. Especially given the circumstances. You must have been scared shitless.”
“I still am,” he said.
Palliser nodded and stood up from the desk. “I know you are, buddy,” he said. “And I’m sorry for that. Sorry for all of this, really.”
Alex heard Sam scoff next to him. “You’re sorry?” he said. “How are you sorry about this?”