The Deepest Wound

by Rick Reed

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Moira checked the wall clock outside the cage and cursed under her breath. Jack’s going to kill me, she thought. But there was nothing she could do about it.

  Several of the files were stored in flimsy boxes on the very top shelf, and she wasn’t strong enough to lift them down. That meant standing on the top rung of the ladder, bracing herself with one hand, while rummaging through the boxes for the files she needed. It was almost eight-thirty when she was through pulling the files Eric wanted.

  She looked at the sheer volume of files she had collected. “No way I’m taking all that in one trip, even if I get a cart.”

  Now I’m talking to myself! Good grief! I hope Eric doesn’t expect me to put these back, or I might have to quit.

  She knew Nova was probably somewhere close by, so she pushed the stacks of files against the wall to keep them from toppling over and walked down the hallway toward the elevators. It was almost completely dark in the basement, and she couldn’t find the light switch. She remembered seeing Maintenance Room 1 on a door on the way to the storage room, so she felt her way down the hall, trying doorknobs along the way, until one door opened. The lights were on inside and as she looked around, she saw that she had found the workshop. Tools and machinery filled the space.

  “Nova,” she called out.

  Book had learned the hard way not to trust intelligence he hadn’t gathered himself. Their target was supposed to be in a room on the right about halfway down the basement hallway. He put a hand on Clint’s shoulder and whispered in his ear.

  “I’ll go back up the stairs. Come down from the main hallway.” That way they would push her toward each other. Clint drew his knife and retreated in the direction they had come from.

  The door to the stairway closed with a soft snick and Clint was gone. They were a team. He would give Clint several minutes to get in position. But then a noise came from farther down the hallway ahead of him. Too soon to be Clint. Could be the target.

  The noise grew steady and louder, and he could make out footsteps. Book strained to see into the dark, and a shape began forming. He moved against the wall and slipped his knife from his belt.

  The figure was on top of him now, and Book could see the person had long hair pulled back in a ponytail, and the noise came from a wheeled cart.

  Book remained motionless, ready to kill silently, and then the figure passed him, continuing down the hall. Book heard a door opening and the cart rattling.

  Can’t let him stay behind me. He turned and moved toward the noise.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  Jack’s headlights played across the Civic Center Building. He had thought he saw some movement by the doors, but he seemed to be mistaken. He turned the Crown Vic into the front drive and watched the windows of the prosecutor’s office as he drove slowly by. No lights. The parking spaces in front were all vacant except for a red Camaro. Moira’s car. Then he remembered thinking he saw the side door close—the one that led to “Smokers’ Corner.” Moira had probably snuck out for a smoke.

  He parked in front of the police station and used his magnetic key fob to enter. At the Records Room counter he got the key that led from the police station into the Civic Center, and then dialed Liddell’s cell. It was getting late, but he knew Liddell would hit the panic button if he didn’t show up like he said.

  “Where you at?” Liddell asked. “I had a pizza waiting about thirty minutes ago.”

  “You have my permission to eat my half,” Jack said. “I’m probably not going to make it out there tonight.” He then promised to call as soon as he found Moira.

  “You going to yell at her?” Liddell asked.

  Jack promised to be good, hung up, and headed down the hallway. Why hadn’t Moira called him? She had probably been roped into pulling some extra work. Or she was still snooping around despite him telling her to desist. He decided he wouldn’t yell at her. He would see if she had eaten yet. He was starving. If he couldn’t threaten her, he would coax her away from work with food.

  Book moved quickly but not fast enough. He heard a door click shut just in front of him. With one hand on the hilt of his hunting knife, he tested the door handle. It was locked.

  “Shit,” he said softly. It was probably a janitor. Clint would be at the other end of the hall in less than a minute. Then they had to find the woman and kill her. He didn’t think the person with the cart would be a problem, but a feeling of unease came over him. Nothing had gone right for them ever since the landfill. Maybe Clint was right. Maybe they should pull out now. Just call it quits and go.

  But he knew he wouldn’t leave without completing what they’d come for. The boss would only send another team to do the job, and he and Clint would become the next targets. Besides, there was no way he was letting a girl, or a janitor, or anyone else screw up this last job.

  “C’mon, Clint,” he said under his breath as he snuck back down the hallway, toward the target. Clint said she’d never see it coming, but he was wrong. Book was going to make sure she saw it coming.

  Clint had his own problems. He had made it to the top of the stairs and down the hall to the elevator only to find the door to the stairway was stuck. It wasn’t locked, because the handle turned and he could feel the mechanism working. It was tight. He hoped it wouldn’t squeal when he forced it.

  He put his shoulder to the door and pressed with all his two hundred thirty pounds until it suddenly gave. The squeal of metal on metal shrieked in the cavernous silence. He stood motionless for several heartbeats, then heard a door opening nearby. Footsteps. Coming his direction.

  He stepped through and shut the door behind him. It squealed loudly again, and he cursed. He clicked on a small flashlight and headed down the stairs, taking them two at a time. He didn’t have the time to let his night vision kick in.

  The footsteps stopped just outside the door above him. Shit! Someone must have heard me.

  Clint jumped the last four steps to the bottom of the first landing just as he heard the door above him squeal. He heard a man’s voice yell, “Hey!” And then, “Police! Stop!” Then he heard someone charging down after him in a big damn hurry.

  Jack had intended to go straight down the hallway to the prosecutors’ offices, but to his left around a corner he heard a metal squeal that he recognized as the downstairs door near the elevators. He knew Nova would never use the stairs because he had a bad hip. Maybe it’s Moira? He hurried around the corner and was about to call out her name when he heard the door slam shut with a groan. When he opened the door to the stairway he saw a large masked figure shining a flashlight and dressed all in black. And then the man ran.

  “Hey!” Jack yelled, drawing his pistol. He took the stairs two at a time and yelled, “Police! Stop!”

  The retreating figure took the light with it, and Jack was plunged into total darkness near the bottom of the first landing. He slipped on the last step and collided with the wall, letting out a curse before plunging down the last flight of stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, though, his innate caution kicked in. He stopped at the door, trying to recall what he’d seen. Had the man been armed? He didn’t remember.

  He stood to one side of the door, his back against the concrete block wall. Reaching across, he tried the door handle. With a loud blast a bullet punched through the steel door where Jack’s face should have been. The bullet ricocheted off the steps and bounced around the concrete walls. The steel door had muffled the blast, but Jack’s ears still rang.

  He flung the door wide and dove through the opening. Spreadeagled across the floor, his pistol barrel pointed straight ahead, he watched and listened carefully, but whoever it was had moved on.

  Jack had one advantage. Whoever shot at him had ruined their night vision with the muzzle blast of their gun, while Jack had remained in the darkness. He heard the soft pad of someone moving away from him. He couldn’t risk firing blindly. He still didn’t know where Moira was, but her car was here, so it was a g
ood bet she was somewhere in the building.

  He heard the slap of shoes on concrete again. The sound was retreating toward the far end of the hallway, where a door led back upstairs.

  He rose to his feet, risking another bullet, and ran toward the sound. The shooter was going up to the prosecutor’s floor. If Moira was upstairs, she was in danger of walking right into the killer’s path. The leather soles of his shoes made a clacking sound on the concrete floor, giving his exact position away.

  Jack heard the bullets whizzing by his head—and saw the bright muzzle flashes—almost at the same instant. He dropped to the floor and crawled back toward the elevators. He knew that pursuing the shooter in that direction was insanity. He would be a sitting duck both in the hall and on the stairway at the other end. Which left him with one choice. He had to reach the upstairs hallway before the shooter came out by the exit doors of the first floor. There was no one in the Civic Center this time of night, and thick concrete and steel walls separated it from the police station. No one could possibly have heard the gunshots.

  Moira was in a maintenance room looking for Nova when she heard someone shout and a door slam. At first she thought it was Nova, but why would he be yelling and slamming doors? She was just about to go into the hall and see what it was when she heard what sounded like a gunshot. Very loud. Very close. She instantly flipped the lights off and crouched in the darkness, heart racing.

  The door slammed again, even louder this time. She crab-walked back a few steps, but it was so dark. She didn’t remember the room layout, and she couldn’t risk turning the lights on. She had a cell phone and a cigarette lighter, but they were upstairs in her office.

  Her mind raced. Had she seen a telephone in this room? Surely there was one, but it was so dark she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. She felt around and touched the metal frame of the doorway. She grabbed the door handle. God, please get me out of here! Then she heard more gunshots and instinctively crouched again.

  She waited for agonizing seconds, but staying in the dark room wasn’t an option. Without thinking, she flung the door wide and ran headlong for the stairway door directly across from the maintenance room. She yanked it open and ran up the steps as fast as her legs would carry her. When she reached the top landing, she burst out into the dimly lit upper floor.

  A strong arm wrapped around her throat and a hand slammed over her mouth, effectively smothering her scream.

  Book heard the first gunshot and saw a muzzle flash down the hallway about where Clint should have come down. He retreated to the stairway and up to the first floor. They had discussed this contingency. If the plan went to hell they would split up and meet back at the car. Book resisted the urge to wait for Clint, and once outside, he fled into the darkness.

  Jack retreated to the stairway door by the elevators and, not worrying about making noise any longer, ran up the steps. He made it through the upstairs door when he heard another crash and loud footsteps coming up behind him.

  His throat tightened. He knew they worked as a pair. Had he allowed them to trap him between them? Was the other one waiting for him to step into the open and gun him down? His only chance was to surprise the one coming up the stairs. He stepped to one side of the door, gun gripped tightly against his chest. When Moira came bursting through the doorway, he grabbed her and put a hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming.

  She struggled violently, but he held on and whispered fiercely in her ear, “Moira. It’s Jack. It’s Jack!”

  She stopped struggling, but he kept his hand over her mouth. “Don’t make any sound, they may be up here.” When she stopped struggling he released her and motioned for her to get behind him, but she was shaking violently and clung to him.

  “You’re safe now, Moira,” Jack said to calm her. In fact, they were in mortal danger, but she didn’t need to know that. Two guns against one weren’t good odds.

  When she stopped shaking, Jack peeked around the corner. When no one shot at him, he guessed the way was clear. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, and led her down the hall to the police wing.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  In the microsecond that he had seen Murphy at the top of the stairs, Clint recognized him from the news. Clint had bolted downstairs and through the door. He turned off the light clipped to the bottom of his pistol and positioned himself directly across from the door. He pointed the Beretta at chest level. If he could get Murphy off his tail, all he had to do was turn right, and run in a straight line to escape out of the other end of the building. He hoped Book saw the flashlight or heard the shout and realized something had gone wrong. Book was probably already clearing out, but just in case, he’d give his pursuer a little present.

  When he heard the door handle turn, he fired a bullet into the center of the door. He turned and ran full-steam down the hall. He had about two hundred feet to the other stairway, and he was sure he’d make it. Then everything went wonky.

  In his headlong flight, he didn’t hear the door that had opened ahead of him or see that something was in his path. Suddenly he was flung head over heels, with metal objects crashing all around him, and he heard someone cry out. He scrambled to his feet and felt a sharp pain in his leg.

  He could stand, but his right leg wasn’t cooperating. In fierce pain he hobbled up the stairs to the top landing and in the muted light discovered why. A large screwdriver protruded from just above his right knee. He pulled the blade out and dropped it down the stairs. The clatter it made felt like the last straw.

  He hurt like hell, but he had to get to the car before Book cleared out. He didn’t think Book would leave him behind—at least alive—but this wasn’t the Army.

  With his gimpy leg and screaming ribs, he crossed the street and ran behind some bushes, along a fence, and then turned into a dark side alley where on the other side of where the school buses were parked. He gave a sigh of relief when he spotted the Taurus coming at him.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  The police response was immediate, but Jack already knew it was too little, too late. He put out a BOLO, but these guys were long gone. The only description he could give the dispatcher was of the one he’d seen very briefly. He added that the man was possibly in the company of another male subject. Both were possibly in dark clothing, and both were possibly armed. But the suspects would have to be idiots to still be wearing balaclavas and walking around the street with guns.

  Jack and another detective, Sam Smith, entered the basement from one end, while uniformed officers came down the stairs on the Locust Street side. Other police cars were blocking the more likely streets that could be used to escape. Yet the killers could have fled anywhere in a few minutes’ time.

  Detective Smith put the tip of his little finger over the bullet hole in the metal door. “You almost bought the farm!”

  Jack found the spent bullet on the floor of the stairwell. It had penetrated the metal door and then flattened on the staircase. Another officer found the ejected shell casing in the hallway: a 9mm Parabellum. That was the ammunition used in a Beretta model 92S, like the gunmen in New Harmony had used to kill the pharmacist.

  An officer yelled from the end of the hallway. “Down here.”

  Jack saw a metal cart was turned over—wheels up—and an assortment of tools lay helter-skelter across the floor. The officer was holding the stairwell door open and pointed at the base of the stairs, where a large screwdriver lay. The long blade was coated with blood and a trail of droplets led up the stairs.

  “Someone got hurt,” the officer said.

  “Let’s hope it was the right someone,” Jack replied.

  Jack heard a soft moan coming from behind them. He took a few steps back and pulled a door open. Nova was lying in a heap on the floor, a terrible gash across his forehead.

  Jack crouched down and checked his injuries “Call for an ambulance.”

  The screwdriver and blood specimens were collected, to be sent to the state police lab. In blood,
on the handle of the screwdriver, was a clear set of prints. The tech said they were from a right hand—all four fingers and a thumb—and the prints were good enough for comparison. The tech promised to put them through the databases ASAP.

  Jack told the tech to send the bullet and shell casing to the state police lab right away for comparison with the ammunition used in New Harmony. “Tell the lab that Brooke Wethington said to put a rush on these.” The tech grinned and left with the samples.

  In Jack’s considerable experience, he’d never made a criminal case on fingerprints. Not because they weren’t good evidence, but because people seldom left perfect prints behind. But now they had blood, fingerprints, bullets, shell casings, and the video from New Harmony. The noose was tightening.

  He headed back to the detective squad room, where he had left Moira in his office. When he looked in, he was surprised to find Brooke sitting with Moira, with one arm around her shoulders. Moira’s complexion was pale. Her makeup was smudged from crying.

  “How is the old guy doing?” Brooke asked.

  Jack wondered how Brooke had arrived so quickly, but he didn’t ask. “Nova’s on his way to the hospital.”

  “Did he get shot?” Moira asked, and Jack shook his head.

  “The killer ran right into his equipment cart. Nova was knocked down, and has a cut on his forehead, but he’ll be fine. He’s a tough old bird,” Jack lied.

  Moira was already shaken up. She didn’t need to know Nova was still unconscious when paramedics arrived and they suspected a concussion.