Secrets of the Hanged Man (Icarus Fell #3) (An Icarus Fell Novel)

by Blake, Bruce

  Stupid teenagers.

  “Trevor.”

  A few students loitering nearby regarded me as though a third eye winked at them from my forehead—expressions likely reserved for any non-teacher over thirty invading their space. I chose to ignore them. When Trevor didn’t respond, I shouted again.

  “Trevor!”

  This time both my son and his companion turned to scan the crowd. They should have been able to pick out the one person with the ability to grow a full beard in the group of their peers, but I made it easier for them by raising my arm and waving. I quickly wished I hadn’t when a bolt of pain shot from my shoulder and through my chest. I lowered it again, attempting to hide my discomfort from my approaching son, his friend, and his classmates.

  “Ric?” he said as they came closer. “What are you doing here?”

  It pained me to hear him call me Ric instead of dad, but it needed to be that way in public. Many of his classmates would know muggers killed Trevor’s father under an old oak tree outside the church. Apparently, when you’re murdered in a churchyard, it’s big news. I even made the front page the day after I died—my Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame.

  “I’ve got something for you.”

  Trevor wore his usual leather jacket, jeans, and tee-shirt emblazoned with the logo of a heavy metal band I’d never heard of: Gojira. His friend was similarly clothed in the black uniform of youth, with limp hair hanging in his eyes and hands jammed deep in his pockets. He didn’t appear cold despite his lack of proper winter attire.

  I started toward them, but the calf that had provided sustenance for a creature in Hell exploded with pain and I stumbled, barely catching myself before I took a fall. I straightened and took another step that turned out more hop than limp.

  “Are you okay, D-- Ric?”

  “Yeah, fine. An old football injury acting up.”

  “Pfft. Right. Like you ever played football.”

  “Trevor,” I pseudo-scolded. “Don’t embarrass me in front of your friend.”

  I gestured toward the other kid who’d stopped a few steps behind Trevor and stared at me with an odd look in his eyes and his mouth hanging open. His awed expression made me feel like something of a rock star. Weird.

  “Who’s your friend?”

  “Oh yeah. This is Cory. Cory, this is my...a friend of the family. Uncle Ric.”

  “Ric is fine,” I said offering my hand and shooting Trevor an appreciative wink. We’d planned the friend-of-the-family story in advance in case I needed to see him with other people around. The uncle part was unnecessary and might confuse things, or give people ideas; I’d mention it to him when we found a few minutes alone together again.

  The kid dragged his gaze from my face to my hand, hesitating like I held out a foreign thing and he didn’t understand what to do. Apparently he didn’t, because he left a brother hanging. I took my hand back, thankful for the opportunity to do so because my sonofabitch shoulder ached beyond reason. My gaze hung on Trevor’s friend for a few more seconds, wondering what his deal was until realization dawned: he’s a teenager.

  “What have you got for me, Ric?”

  I paused, regarding my son for a second. Despite his inability to do it now, it took my death for him to become comfortable calling me ‘dad’ again after years of neglect and doubt. That alone might have been worth the bullshit thrown at me in my afterlife.

  I fished the cell phone out of my pocket and held it out for him on my flat palm. His eye widened.

  “A phone? Mom’s not going to be happy.”

  “Don’t tell her.”

  “But I can’t afford to pay for it.” He took it anyway and turned it over in his fingers like something precious—a gem stone or, for him, a hard-to-find live bootleg.

  “It’s a pay-as-you-go. I loaded it up with a bunch of minutes, but it’s for emergency only.” I put my hand on his shoulder and looked past him at his friend Cory. He’d backed up a step and considered me as though I wore the Michael Myers’ mask from the movie Halloween. I directed my gaze back to my son.

  “Did you guys know the three boys who died?”

  “Three? No, two.” Trevor leaned close to me and lowered his voice. “Do you know something we don’t?”

  They haven’t found Tom’s body.

  “They were accidents,” Cory said.

  The spot in my gut where a hellacious pig’s large tusks tried to make sweet love to my intestines twisted with pain and I bit down hard on my teeth to keep from crying out. The teen’s expression changed from wide-eyed awe and surprise to something teetering on the edge of anger, as though he felt it, too, and blamed me.

  “That’s right. Two friends, two accidents in the same night.” My gaze lingered on Cory’s narrowed eyes for a second before finding its way back to my son. “I’m sure everything’s fine, but better safe than sorry, right?”

  “You don’t have to worry,” Cory said. The pain in my gut tweaked again, his words a finger poking it. “I’ll take care of Trevor.”

  I looked his skinny frame up and down and considered commenting on how he didn’t appear able to defend himself from a smurf attack, but decided to keep silent. In my experience, teenage boys have notoriously delicate egos. Grown up men, too, really.

  “Well thanks for that...Cory, right?” He nodded and I put both my hands on Trevor’s shoulders. The ache in my shoulder made my arm feel as though it outweighed the rest of my body. “But if there’s ever any trouble, I programmed my number into the speed dial. Hold number one and it’ll dial me.”

  “Okay. Ric.”

  I dropped my hands from his shoulders, letting them dangle at my sides. The pain in my shoulder flowed along my arm to the tips of my fingers, an electrical charge taking over my nerve endings, pulsing through them and making me wish they didn’t exist. I glanced from Trevor to his friend and back again.

  “Anything else going on?” I said trying to make conversation but not really expecting to hear about an upcoming party or a difficult math test on the horizon, given the deaths. Truth be told, my insistent aches and pains made me want to curl up in a corner rather than converse, anyway.

  In response, Trev dropped his gaze to his feet, kicked at a tuft of grass and jammed his hands, phone and all, into his pockets.

  I don’t like this.

  “Trev? What did you do?”

  Jumping to the conclusion he’d misbehaved probably wasn’t the best parental technique, but my parenting skills were a few years out of practice, though Rae might suggest they’d never really been used. Trevor didn’t seem to notice the slight as he rocked side to side, shifting his weight one foot to the other and back. The longer it took him to answer, the worse I assumed it to be.

  “Trev?”

  He finally raised his head but hesitated seconds before breaking the news.

  “Mom and Ashton are getting married.”

  I forgot the ache in my shoulder, the pain in my stomach and calf, all of it swapped for the feeling my ex-wife had crept up behind me and kicked me in the balls.

  ***

  Cory stared after Trevor’s ‘Uncle Ric’ as he limped his way back through the throng of students, rubbing his shoulder as he went. The farther he got away from them, the less he limped, and the less the pain in Cory’s own shoulder, leg and stomach throbbed. After a minute, he disappeared amongst the teens and Trevor said something Cory didn’t catch. He gave his head a shake and took a deep breath, happy to find the discomfort in his chest had dissipated.

  “What?”

  “I said ‘what do you want to do?’”

  “Whatever.”

  They started walking, their feet carrying them toward the park, their usual destination when they had nowhere to go.

  “We could go to your house,” Trevor suggested.

  “Naw. My mom’s got quite the mess going on.”

  “Mine’ll be out, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for anyone to be around when I see them again.”

  “Rig
ht.”

  They wended their way through the other students without speaking to them or seeing who they passed. With Manny and his gang gone, they had no one to be afraid of, and neither of them had other friends to look for. Cory’s thoughts rested on Trevor’s uncle, the familiarity of his face tickling a connection in his mind that refused to complete. He suspected he’d seen him somewhere before, but there was more, as if he recognized his smell.

  “There’s a resemblance between you and that Ric guy.”

  “Yeah. People say, but he’s no relation. A friend of my dad’s.” He let out a nervous laugh. “Maybe a friend of my mom’s, too.”

  Cory laughed, too, but didn’t mean it. He was too busy deciphering the tumult of vague memories and unwarranted pain within himself, struggling with the pieces until they clicked into place like the last two Lego blocks snapping together to finish a model. The shape it created nearly made him stop walking, but he forced himself to continue to prevent Trevor from being curious and asking questions. He continued staring at his feet rather than at his friend.

  Cory shook his head, doing his best to convince himself he’d reached the wrong conclusion, searching for the flaw in his logic, but it eluded him. The limp, the other obvious pains, the tense stress he brought to Cory. The smell.

  Ric was the man he’d seen at the playground when Gonzo met his end, and the man who’d taken his mother.

  And he’d seen him another time before that.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  A Month Ago

  The phone vibrated on the passenger seat beside Detective Shaun Williams. He diverted his eyes from the road and read the single word flashing across the small lighted square on the front of it.

  Meg.

  “Christ.”

  He rubbed the bare spot on the ring finger of his left hand, debating whether to answer her call or not. If he didn’t, it’d be worse the next time she called. With a sigh, he grabbed the phone off the seat and flipped it open.

  “Williams.”

  “Shaun, it’s me,” she said. Even through the ancient cell phone’s tinny speaker, he detected a note of desperation in the three brief words.

  When doesn’t she sound desperate?

  “What do you need?”

  “He’s gone.”

  Williams spun the wheel to take a corner while holding the phone against his ear with the other hand, waiting for her to say more. She didn’t.

  “What are you talking about? Who’s gone?”

  “Cory. I’m worried about him.”

  “Meg, the kid’s almost seventeen, practically a man. Cut him some slack.”

  “But he’s been gone for two days, Shaun.”

  The detective hesitated before responding. In the turbulent years of their marriage, he’d failed to connect with her son. It seemed everyone had.

  “We’re not together anymore, Meg. Remember? He’s not my responsibility.”

  Never was, really.

  “I remember,” she said, her tone gone quiet. His old phone distorted her voice, but he suspected the tell-tale sound of held back tears in her words.

  His leaving had hurt her, a fact she’d made clear in the months since the split. Her hurt and her intention to get him back were obvious to everyone willing to listen, and many people who weren’t. But he couldn’t live like that, not anymore. He opened his mouth to tell her so, but she cut him off.

  “Two days, Shaun. Please help me.”

  “Meg, I--”

  “If you help, I won’t call you anymore.”

  I doubt it.

  He moved the phone away from the side of his head and sighed. Did she mean it this time? Would finding the kid be his ticket to peace? He replaced the phone to his cheek.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Have a look around for him, Shaun. Get some of the other policemen to help. Please, find him.”

  Ahead, someone waited at the crosswalk. Detective Williams slowed the car to allow the man to cross, brakes squeaking. He stepped off the curb and raised his hand in thanks, turning his face toward the car. Shaun Williams’ mouth dropped open in disbelief.

  It’s him.

  “Please, Shaun. He--”

  “I gotta go, Meg. I’ll look, I promise.”

  He snapped the cell phone shut and tossed in onto the seat while stabbing the power window button with the index finger of his other hand. The glass chattered halfway down and stopped.

  “Hey you,” he called out the window, breath misting in the cold air. The man quickened his pace without looking back. “Stop!”

  The fellow bolted across the street, so Williams hammered the gas, the car’s engine roaring and tires chirping as he cranked the wheel to round the corner after him. He gained on him, the car’s headlights bearing down on the multiple homicide suspect who’d escaped police custody, but he darted off the sidewalk, across a lawn and over a fence.

  “Damn it,” Williams cursed and goosed the accelerator.

  The old Dodge hesitated before giving him the power he asked for. He wished he could drive a newer, more powerful car, but a detective’s salary wouldn’t stretch far enough to support two ex-wives and a new car.

  The engine roared and the testy transmission slammed into the next gear, jerking him in his seat as he reached out the window to put the already flashing cherry light on the roof. If he got around the block fast enough, he might be able to cut him off.

  He rounded one corner and the next in time to see the perp disappear into an alley. Detective Williams searched his vast mental catalog of the city’s side streets and alleys to realize this particular one came to a dead end.

  “Gothca, bastard.”

  He gunned the engine to get down the block, then slammed the brake pedal to the floor, tires squealing as he skidded to a stop at the entrance to the lane. A figure stood in the middle of the alley, not running anymore, not attempting to hide.

  Williams threw the car door open and struggled out, forgetting to undo his seat belt. He cursed, pushed his thumb against the release button, and climbed out of the car, pulling his pistol out of the holster at his hip at the same time.

  “Halt,” he called; the suspect didn’t react. Williams raised his gun, but the man made no threatening move, didn’t look like he intended to draw on him. He stalked around the front of the car. When the man remained still, Williams started running toward him.

  He took off again and Williams cursed.

  I’m getting too old for this.

  The suspect disappeared around a corner. Williams pushed himself faster, but then slowed as he came to the corner, rounded it with care and found the murderer standing in the middle of the alley a few yards away, facing him. The detective skidded to a halt beneath an overhead light.

  Making a stand.

  “Mr. Fell,” he said between panted breaths, the stench of garbage assaulting his nostrils. “If that’s really your name.”

  “It’s the name the bastard gave me,” he muttered. “We seem to meet under awkward circumstances, don’t we, Detective?”

  “Sometimes happens between serial killers and cops.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Right.” Williams leveled the gun, his gaze unwavering. “And I’m Serena Williams. Put your hands behind your head.”

  ***

  A shout echoed down the alley, bouncing from brick wall to brick wall, then the sound of footfalls. Cory looked back over his shoulder, but saw no one coming around the corner. Yet. The footsteps were closing, leaving him a choice: hide or explain why he was in an alley at this time on a school night.

  He noticed a place between two garbage bins wide enough to wedge himself into and headed for it. With his dark clothing and the dim alley, he should be rendered near-invisible. He hurried to the spot, kicking something as he reached it and he looked down to see a jagged rock spinning away from his foot.

  A man came around the corner at a run and Cory’s heart leaped into his throat, but the guy got tang
led in a pile of garbage bags and fell. Cory used the opportunity to wiggle himself between the bins and settled in to wait and watch.

  The man scrambled to his feet and continued past where the teen hid, then stopped and turned, backing away a few steps as another guy came around the corner and skidded to a halt under an overhead light. Cory’s eyes widened at the sight of him.

  “Mr. Fell,” his stepfather said between panted breaths. “If that’s really your name.”

  “It’s the name the bastard gave me,” the other guy said. “We seem to meet under awkward circumstances, don’t we, Detective?”

  “Sometimes happens between serial killers and cops.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Right.” Williams pointed the gun and the teen’s muscles tensed. “And I’m Serena Williams. Put your hands behind your head.”

  Cory glared at the cop. If he hadn’t left, he and his mother wouldn’t have had their most recent fight that forced him out of the house to hide in an alley. If Shaun hadn’t deserted them, she’d have one less thing to blame Cory for.

  The other man hesitated and, when he spoke, his tone changed, held a note of surprise. “Detective Williams?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Now that we’ve been properly introduced, put your fucking hands behind your head before I shoot you.”

  A shiver of excitement prickled along Cory’s limbs and he worried the movement might give him away. In his head, he imagined this man wrestling the gun out of the detective’s hand and making him pay for how he’d made his mother feel, for driving an even wider wedge between him and the only person he cared about.

  “You’ve got to go,” the man said. He glanced away from Shaun and his eyes passed over Cory’s hiding place, but he didn’t see him. “You’re in danger.”

  “Me?” Cory’s estranged stepfather stretched his arm farther, threatening the man with the barrel of the gun. “If you don’t get your hands up right now, you’ll never walk again.”

  Cory’s teeth ground together and he glared at the detective, remembering they way he and his mother fought, how he left her crying and worrying when he didn’t come home until late, or not at all. Being with Shaun had hurt her, but his leaving hurt her more. Unbridled hatred bubbled in the teen’s stomach. Near his foot, the rock he’d kicked when he hid quivered and slid a few inches toward the two men.