Airbag Scars

by Jim Heskett

Chapter Thirty-Nine

  MICAH SAT in his car outside a dark and quiet warehouse in Commerce City, staring at his phone. He drummed his hands against the steering wheel, slow at first, then building pressure until he smacked it hard enough to make his hands ache.

  The blinking pin on the GPS app was about two hundred yards ahead, give or take. The large square building looked sixty or seventy feet tall, with a few windows near the top. No cameras outdoor that he could see, but there was a good chance Donovan was watching anyway. In front of him, a loading bay ramp descended, with four of the five tall garage door bays shut. The middle one was open, and that’s where Micah was supposed to enter and meet Donovan.

  Ideally, he would circle the warehouse, looking for all the ways in or out. But the entire warehouse was shrouded in darkness and he couldn’t see anything beyond the loading bay illuminated by his car’s headlights.

  Micah killed the engine, got out, and turned on his phone’s flashlight app. He re-situated the revolver in his back belt loop, making sure it wouldn’t fall out if he had to run.

  He slogged through muddy gravel toward the side of the loading bay, and glanced up to find a single camera twenty feet up, attached to the building. Keeping an eye on it, he moved to the side, but the camera didn’t follow him. No lights blinked.

  Get in, get Hayden, then deal with Donovan. It sounded as simple as one of Frank’s apprehension plans, but that didn’t actually make it so.

  He considered what he knew about Donovan: how he’d been following Micah to AA meetings, was probably the person who’d sent him on that anonymous wild goose chase to the boxing gym, and now he’d snatched Hayden. Donovan was smart enough to have infiltrated Micah’s life without Micah figuring it out. Clever. Maybe crazy, but clever.

  A pair of yellow eyes lit up the darkness to Micah’s left, and he crouched down. He squinted to gather the shape of the form around the eyes, and it took him a few seconds. Four legs. Big cat, or maybe a raccoon or a coyote. Whatever it was, it wasn’t too interested in Micah, and those yellow eyes disappeared again into the darkness.

  He continued creeping around the side of the building, trying to find alternate routes. No windows at ground level, they were only way up high, so he didn’t worry that Donovan was watching from one of them.

  No great secondary paths into the building appeared, and Micah figured Donovan would have thought of that. Just like when they’d captured Roland at the silo, there would be a choke point so Donovan could control the situation. So Donovan had to be keeping an eye on him somehow. He couldn’t assume Micah would automatically choose the open loading bay, would he? Or maybe, it didn’t matter which entrance Micah picked, because Donovan could have some kind of superior position inside the warehouse that fed from multiple choke points.

  Micah found a small door on the western side of the building, but it was locked. Fortunately, he knew how to get past that. He took out his two picks and went to work at the lock, hoping whatever noise it was making on the other side wasn’t enough to alert Donovan.

  Micah had to hold out hope that he could get some element of surprise on him. It might be the only advantage he had.

  When he got the door unlocked, he creaked it open as quietly as possible, put a hand on the revolver in his belt loop, and stepped inside.

  Donovan watched Micah drive up and park in front of the loading bay. Micah spent a few minutes in the car, and Donovan couldn’t see much from his hiding spot, but he eventually killed the lights and left the car.

  Donovan was standing in the middle of the massive room, between two rows of pallets stacked up above his head. Shrink wrap covered the contents. The room fell silent except for his breathing and the occasional squabble of a distant rat.

  He was still deciding the best place to wait for Micah, since Donovan couldn’t be sure that he would go through the open loading bay door. The snitch would probably know how to jimmy the lock on the side door.

  The inside of the warehouse was completely dark, the only light coming from the lantern back in the office where Hayden was tied up. So, in that respect, it didn’t matter if Micah came through the side entrance instead. Whichever path he chose, he’d find his way back to that office, like a mosquito to a bug zapper.

  Donovan retreated back toward the office, where he peeked through the window to make sure Hayden was still tied up. The tricky bitch had gotten out of her duct tape somehow once, so he’d had to be more careful this time. He’d used rope only, and connected her hands and feet to give her no wiggle room.

  Micah had disappeared from the front, so he was definitely going to try to sneak in the side. Tricky snitch.

  That was a good sign that Micah didn’t intend to play fair, so Donovan didn’t want to risk a face to face encounter. Micah had earned a reputation for deceit back in El Lobo’s organization, so Donovan had to be wary of any face he put on. Micah might come out with his hands up and surrender on his face, only to whip around with a machine gun taped to his back, like the guy at the end of Die Hard.

  The safest option was not to meet him on a level playing field. He would much rather deal with Micah after he’d knocked him silly and made him more pliable.

  The office was a small room in the corner of the warehouse. Next to it stood a skinny separate bathroom, but Micah would probably check there, and Donovan didn’t want to be trapped. No safe place to hide near the back office.

  A cloud that had been shrouding the moon passed and a beam of light came through the upper windows, and Donovan saw his salvation. He could climb on top of the office. It was a free standing structure with its own roof. Micah would never see that coming.

  He walked to one side where a few wooden pallets were strewn about, then stacked a couple so he could reach the roof. As he climbed, a door creaked off to one side of the warehouse.

  Donovan pulled himself up to the top of the roof and crouched. Through the dim moonlight, he spied Micah creeping along a path between stacks of boxes at one end of the warehouse. Now, all Donovan had to do was wait.

  Chapter Forty

  RIGHT AWAY, Micah noticed the light coming from the far corner of the warehouse. Seemed dim, like a candle or a lantern, and dulled as if behind a pane of glass.

  He slipped his jacket off and laid it across a nearby stack of boxes. His hand drifted to the gun in the back of his jeans as he crouched, but he wasn’t willing to draw it yet. Just wanted to feel the weight of it, to know he could grab it when the time came.

  The last thing he needed would be for Donovan to see him packing and kill Hayden out of reflex. If she died, then all of this would be for nothing.

  He made his way through a maze of vehicles, like ATVs or tiny tractors but with forklifts in front of them. They were positioned at odd angles, and he had to creep along slowly to avoid catching an ankle under a stray tire. Past them, he came to rows of boxes stacked on pallets.

  Even through the moonlight, he could see spider webs covering almost everything. Whatever the warehouse had been used for, no one had been here in a long time.

  His tennis shoes shuffled through dust along the floor, as close to silent as he could make them. The sound of air pushing in and out of his lungs carried through the mute room, then absorbed into the stillness.

  As he drew closer to the light, he could see there was a room in the corner of the warehouse, like a little self-contained building. A manager’s office, or something like that. That’s where Hayden would be, probably bound and gagged inside that room.

  But where was Donovan?

  As much as Micah squinted and tried to use all the available light, he kept coming up empty. The only possible place for Donovan to be was in that room. No way could he keep his element of surprise if Donovan was in there, gun against Hayden’s head. Micah would have to make a head-on play and then improvise his next move.

  He straightened up, took his hand off the gun, and walked toward the office. Through the cloudy glass, he could see the source of light—a lantern—and Hayden,
secured to a chair with rope. Her hands and legs were both bound.

  He reached out for the door, felt the air change for a split second, then he went tumbling to the ground. Something had forced him down, and he immediately realized a body was on top of him. He tasted sawdust as he tried to breathe in.

  Before he had a chance to react, a hand grabbed him by the hair, then slammed his head into the ground. Once, twice, and the world went fuzzy for a second.

  “Hello, Michael and Micah,” said a disconnected voice, which had to be Donovan.

  Micah, dizzy and feeling like he was going to vomit as his head began to pound, felt hands crawling under his armpits, then down his sides, and settling on his waistband. He realized he was about to lose his gun, the only means he had to defend himself.

  Panic welled in his fuzzy brain. He couldn’t lose his weapon.

  He tried to scramble away, but it was too late. Donovan had his gun. Micah squinted to see his attacker standing over him, with a gun now in each hand.

  “Okay, snitch. Time to get up. We still have some unfinished business.”

  Micah staggered to his feet, his head throbbing. Donovan jumped back to a safe distance out of arm’s reach, keeping those pistols trained on him. He now stood within the glow of the lantern, and Micah could see his unshaven face and his bloodshot eyes.

  Donovan waved one of the guns at the office door, and Micah opened it.

  When Hayden saw him, her eyes flew open. A coil of rope ran around her head as a gag, but she still tried to talk to him.

  Micah knew it would do no good to rush over to her and free her. Donovan had the gun, so he had all the leverage. Micah eased into the room and walked to Hayden as Donovan shut the door behind him.

  “I’m here now,” Micah said. “I’ll go with you. So let her leave, and keep this between us. She has nothing to do with it.”

  Donovan slipped Micah’s revolver into his jacket pocket and leaned against the inner wall of the office. He sucked in a deep breath and blew it out through his cheeks. He took his time answering Micah’s proposal.

  “See, that’s the thing, snitch. She has everything to do with it. When you look at her, what do you see?”

  Micah looked down at this poor woman, and he felt so terribly guilty for getting her involved. “I see someone who has nothing to do with anything. An innocent bystander who played no part in our beef.”

  Donovan burst out laughing, which continued for several seconds. “You stupid son of a bitch. Seriously? You still haven’t figured it out?” He then nodded at Hayden. “And you… you don’t recognize him either?”

  Hayden paused, then she shook her head.

  Donovan kept laughing, snickering to himself like it was the best joke no one else understood. “Okay, this is going to blow your minds. Do you remember the night that I found you?”

  “You mean when you came to that AA meeting?”

  “No, Micah, before that. The night you crashed your car.”

  A dawning realization spread through Micah. It made complete sense now, why he had driven drunk the night of his blackout. Donovan must have been chasing him, which would explain his bruised knuckles and the black eye.

  “I don’t remember,” Micah said as his pounding head began to clear. “I was drunk.”

  “You sure were, like an Irishman on payday. And that’s what set all of this in motion. This whole thing was a serious of unfortunate accidents because I wasn’t even in town looking for you. I mean, there’s a price on your head. Last I heard, it was up over six figures. But, I was here for another reason completely, something I’ve had to push to the side because of you. But I happened to be downtown that night, and I happened to see you, and you happened to get in a car and try to get away from me. Ringing any bells?”

  Micah didn’t know what this had to do with anything. He still had only flashes of that night, the same as he’d had since waking up in the ditch.

  “And little miss Hayden here, she happened to be out that night, jogging. Isn’t that right?”

  She nodded, and Micah felt a chill run up his back, as if the room had suddenly dropped twenty degrees.

  “You, Micah,” Donovan said, “were driving so crazy, you didn’t even see Miss Hayden here because you were too wasted.”

  The pounding in Micah’s head subsided as he felt his chest constricting. “No,” he said, but he knew it was true. Hayden looked at him, and all he could do was stare back. But when he met her eyes, he noticed something there. A spark. He had seen her, the night of the blackout. He remembered her curly black hair and a certain look in her eyes, as clearly as he saw them right now.

  “You fucking ran over her with your Honda. How about that? You just jumped the curb and knocked her off her goddamn feet.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  MICAH WAS barely paying attention to Donovan anymore. His eyes were on Hayden, and as much as he wanted to deny it, he couldn’t. He’d been carrying around her running shoe for the last month. He’d hit her with his car.

  The missing shoe had nothing to do with the Pink Door and those bouncers keeping an eye on him, or the boxing gym, or any of those other angles he’d pursued since leaving detox. Those were all pointless roads he’d wasted his time on. The answer had been right across from him this whole time.

  Now that he thought about it, he even remembered her walking with a slight limp when they’d gone on that stroll along Cherry Creek the day he’d wanted to avoid the gun range. How stupid not to have put it all together.

  Hayden stopped looking at him because Donovan had left his spot along the wall and inched close enough that Micah could smell sour beer on his breath. “So now, the only thing is: what do we do about all this?”

  Micah struggled to speak, but he had to focus. Whatever happened before, he still had to deal with this situation now, or they’d both be dead. “You let her go. That was the deal. She gets to go free, and I go with you to meet Velasquez’s people. Whatever is left of them.”

  “But then the problem is, how do I know she won’t go straight to the cops?”

  Hayden tried to talk again through the gag, and Micah reached over and pushed it down under her chin. “I won’t,” she said. “I only want to go. Please. I don’t care about any of this. I won’t cause any problems, I promise.”

  Donovan held the gun up and started tapping it against his chin. “I don’t know how much I can trust you. You haven’t been straight with me for most of the time I’ve known you.”

  “Here’s the deal,” Micah said. “You untie her and let her walk out of here, and I’ll go with you willingly. You won’t have to tie me up or restrain me. I’ll cooperate a hundred percent.”

  “Micah,” Hayden said, “where are you going? Where does he want to take you?”

  “So she doesn’t know, does she?” Donovan said. “I’ll bet she doesn’t even know your real name.”

  Hayden frowned, but Micah stayed silent. His whole life was unraveling before him, and he had no power in this situation. The only piece he had left to trade was his freedom, but Donovan didn’t need his permission to take that away.

  Donovan sighed, then let his eyes drift between them a few times. “You won’t give me any trouble, all the way to Mexico?”

  Micah nodded.

  “Okay. You untie her, and we’ll see if she can play nice on her way out.”

  Micah went to work on the ropes around her feet. Then he lifted the gag above her head and tossed it aside. He relaxed the ropes binding her wrists, and held out a hand to help her stand up, but Hayden shook her head.

  He gave her a confused look, and she headed for the door. As she passed between the two men, Donovan lifted the pistol. Micah had a flash of panic as he realized Donovan was about to shoot her, despite his promise.

  But it didn’t matter. Micah caught a flash of gold as Hayden reached into the sleeve of her bathrobe. She yanked out a blade with an eagle on the hilt, then pushed Micah aside as she leaped for Donovan.

  Micah s
pun in time to see Hayden smash the letter opener into Donovan’s chest. She drove him back, screaming, thrusting the point deeper into his flesh.

  Micah sprung into action when he saw Donovan lifting the pistol. Micah lunged at Donovan’s hand, swiping at the gun to knock it to the ground.

  Even with blood spurting from his chest, Donovan still managed to get his other hand around Hayden’s neck. He squeezed, and she let go of the letter opener, which was still lodged in Donovan’s chest. With his other hand, he was clawing at his jacket, trying to find Micah’s gun in the inside pocket.

  Micah made a grab at the letter opener to twist it and open the wound, but Donovan stopped going for the gun to block him. He punched Micah in the throat, which made him gasp for air as he staggered back a step.

  Micah scrambled over to retrieve the gun Donovan had lost on the ground. He got a hand on it, but it was slick with blood and he had trouble gripping the stock. By the time he had a hold of it, Donovan had lifted Hayden up off the floor, and she was feebly trying to slap at the hand crushing her windpipe.

  “Bitch!” Donovan screamed. “Fucking bitch!”

  Micah raised the pistol, aimed at Donovan’s side, but the world was too blurry. His head still ached from being slammed into the concrete floor a few minutes ago, and now he was shaking because he had to gasp to draw any air after that throat punch. Donovan’s body and Hayden’s were a mixed mess of dark fabric, and he couldn’t tell them apart.

  Micah aimed at the figure closest to the wall and pulled the trigger. The deafening blast rattled the windows of the tiny office room.

  Donovan released Hayden as he collapsed into the wall, blood rushing out of his chest. She staggered backward, hands grasping at her throat. Donovan tried to yank the letter opener free from his side, but his hand missed and he grabbed on to his arm instead.

  Micah raised the pistol again and shot Donovan between the eyes.