HARD FAL

by CJ Lyons

  Dad must have seen something else when he looked at June. “I’m sure Seth will be back soon.”

  June returned her purse on the coat rack and swiped at her eyes with a knuckled fist. “I wish I believed that. But I know my husband. He’d do anything to protect us. After what happened earlier—I think he decided to take matters into his own hands.”

  Dad thought about that. From the look on his face, Megan realized it was exactly what he would’ve done if he’d been in Seth’s position. Part of her felt proud that she had a father who would risk everything to keep her safe. Part of her was terrified by the thought.

  And her Dad was standing right here, safe and sound. Poor June. Megan rushed to her side. “He’ll be all right, June.” She looked to her dad. “You need to call Mom. Tell her to find Seth and send him back home.”

  From Dad’s expression, he’d be telling Mom more than that—hopefully telling her to come home herself. He patted his pockets, glanced at the sideboard. “Left my phone in the car. Where’s yours?”

  Megan ran down the hall to Grams’ room where she’d left her phone charging. The charger was there but the phone was gone. She returned to the living room. June paced a circle in front of the fire, her hands pressed against her back. She looked so uncomfortable. “It’s not there. Seth must have taken it.”

  “What’s wrong with the phone in the kitchen?” June asked, glancing at the old corded phone on the kitchen wall.

  “Power and phone lines go down all the time up here,” Dad explained. “Coletta switched from the land line to using a cell once the new tower went up.” Still, he crossed over to the kitchen and lifted the receiver to his ear. Then he tried to dial 911 and 0. “Nothing.”

  June stopped, arched her back, and grabbed Megan’s shoulder. Tight. Her face twisted in surprise and she looked down at the floor.

  “June, what’s wrong?”

  “My water just broke.”

  Chapter 24

  TAYLOR SIGNED THEM out a pool vehicle, one of the Bureau’s Tahoes. Big, black, tinted windows, it practically screamed government, but that wasn’t what concerned Lucy. It was how the hell was she going to climb into the passenger seat without putting all of her weight on her bad leg?

  As usual, Taylor’s mind had already processed the problem and come up with a solution. He opened her door for her and pushed the seat back as far as it would go. Then he held her elbow as she stepped with her good leg onto the running board and swung her bad one into the passenger compartment. Once she was settled in, he handed her her cane and bag.

  God, she felt old. He was only four years younger than she was, but here she sat, a decrepit wreck, not even able to climb into a damn car by herself.

  It didn’t help when he practically leapt into the driver’s seat, obviously eager to get to their crime scene. She wondered if she’d ever been as young as he was.

  “I hardly ever get to drive one of these,” he said, adjusting the mirrors. He jerked the wheel and sped them out of the garage, barely waiting for the gate to lift. Lucy grabbed onto her door handle, bracing herself as he took the corner onto Carson too fast and the SUV lurched.

  “Take it easy,” she told him. “The guy’s not getting any deader.”

  “Sorry, boss.” He slowed marginally but his herky-jerky steering if anything got worse. “I just want to nail this guy, Daddy. I mean, I’ve never felt so…” He slammed the brakes at a light that had been red since the last block. “Angry isn’t the right word. I don’t know what is. But this guy, the things he does, the way he just doesn’t give a shit about anyone else, I mean, I know we’ve chased some bad guys, but he, he just makes me—”

  “It’s okay, Taylor. It’s normal to react strongly when faced with someone so aberrant. This guy, he simply doesn’t fit into any concept of what the world should be.” Lucy almost rolled her eyes—she was channeling Nick, repeating almost word for word what he was always telling her when she got upset about a case.

  “Aberrant? Yeah, he’s all that and more.” His voice dropped. “Lucy, do you believe in evil?”

  No need to hesitate, the answer was easy. “Yes. Yes, I do. Absolutely.”

  “And this guy, he’s evil.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then—” He dropped the sentence as if it was a hot coal. “I mean, when we catch him, do you ever wish, fantasize, about…just ending it? Not worrying about a trial or him getting off on a technicality. Just taking care of it, then and there? If he’s evil, isn’t it our job to protect the rest of the world from men like him?”

  The rain and wind seemed distant from the darker elements swirling inside the SUV.

  “Do I ever wish things were that simple?” Lucy answered, struggling to put the paradoxes that tugged at her psyche every working day into some coherent form. “Yes. But, our job isn’t to destroy evil or take the law into our own hands. It’s to uphold the law while protecting the innocent.”

  “But,” he persisted, “the law doesn’t always work. Is it worth the risk that it might fail? For guys like this. I mean, I’m honestly not even sure he’s human. Maybe his DNA is, but his brain sure as hell isn’t.”

  “That’s fear talking. Because it would be so much easier to draw a line, decide that he’s something other, on the outside of humanity that deserves to be treated equally under the law.”

  “So there’re no exceptions?”

  Yes, yes, there were. Lucy was absolutely certain of it. But she was Taylor’s supervisor, his mentor, and she couldn’t lead him down that path. Every man or woman who carried a badge and gun had to decide for themselves.

  Taylor had never killed anyone, had never even fired his weapon in the line of duty. Lucy had. She had killed. Not just with her gun, with her bare hands, face to face, blood slicking blood.

  She’d done right. She’d saved innocents, saved her family, saved her own life.

  That didn’t stop the doubts or nightmares. Wouldn’t make it any easier the next time she drew her weapon. For her, the world wasn’t the black and white, good and evil, clearly demarcated universe that Taylor clearly wished it was. She’d known other cops who could live that way and sleep well at night. She wasn’t one of them.

  Lucy’s world was shades of grey. Her conscience was clear as far as the lives she’d taken; that wasn’t what kept her awake at night. It was the fact that she too was only human. What if she made a mistake, let her emotions drive her to taking an innocent life?

  “Here’s what I know,” she finally answered Taylor. “You have to decide what you can live with. You have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror come morning. And one thing that letting justice take its course gives you is time. Time to be one hundred and twenty percent certain. Time to make sure you can live with the consequences of your actions.”

  His lips twisted, obviously not thrilled with her reply. Neither was she. It felt much too trite when speaking of taking someone else’s life…but what else could she tell him?

  She touched his arm. “I trust you to do the right thing, Taylor. Remember that if the time comes for you to make a decision.”

  “Thanks, Lucy.” Then his mood lightened. “Maybe it’s a good thing the SAC is taking me out of the field. Sitting at a computer all day, you don’t have to think about this kind of thing. I don’t know how you stand it.”

  She didn’t have the heart to tell him that neither did she.

  <><><>

  HE WATCHED FROM the van hidden in the alley across from the abandoned plant’s parking garage. Any of three outcomes were acceptable:

  The yellow car. GPS systems were so very helpful.

  The Fed with the cane. She’d driven the yellow car to its destination and he had ways to access that knowledge if need be.

  Or her phone.

  Outcomes one and three were preferable. Machines were much more useful and quicker to divulge their secrets than people.

  The laptop beside him chimed: a new message from his operative in the field. Leaving ER, follow
ing, tracker in place.

  Option four: the other two Feds gave him what he needed.

  Of course the jackpot would be if the tidbits he’d left here with the body led the police to call Bernhart to the scene. Because it was Bernhart he needed silenced.

  There was no way Bernhart could lead them back to him, to his home, his real life. Especially as the man had no idea what he knew.

  But if Bernhart told the FBI everything—every last detail of what he’d done and who he’d done it to and why…well, that might lead to complications.

  He couldn’t afford complications. Not now, when everything was coming full circle.

  A black SUV drove into sight, slowing before it turned into the parking garage. With the dark and rain and tinted windows it was impossible to see inside. But then both people in the front rolled down their windows to show their credentials to the officer guarding the entrance.

  And there she was. Riding in the passenger seat. Made sense. He’d done his homework. Not only had she been injured and needed a cane, she was a supervisor, rated being chauffeured around to crime scenes.

  Okay. Two outcomes left.

  Outcome one, her phone gave him what he wanted and he left her dead—a service to his community.

  Outcome two, her phone was useless and he left her dead after she told him what he needed to know.

  He preferred the first. He was vulnerable, exposed here in this city. He needed to end this. Now. Tonight.

  Then get rid of the evidence so he could return home and prepare for his reunion with Baby Girl.

  A rustling came from the back of the van. He said nothing, merely raised his hand sharply. It stopped.

  Silence fell.

  Chapter 25

  LUCY AND TAYLOR rode the rest of the way in silence. Taylor steered the Tahoe into the narrow lane that led from the main road into the abandoned industrial complex that housed the old bottling plant. Empty warehouses and manufacturing facilities lined the drive, dark, ugly, scabs of buildings looming out of the rain and mist to crowd the Tahoe.

  At the end of the barely two-lane street sat their destination, a four story red brick monolith. The street divided, one direction going around to the loading dock behind the building, the other going to the entrance to the underground parking area.

  Taylor made another gut-wrenching—or in Lucy’s case, ankle-wrenching—turn toward the parking entrance and then spun the wheel again and hit the brakes as he steered them into the darkened maw. A single patrol car guarded the entrance, its lights providing the only illumination. Taylor rolled down both their windows as a patrol officer used his Maglite to first examine Taylor’s credentials then walked around to check Lucy’s.

  “They’re down at the bottom level, park where you see the others. I’ll radio ahead, let them know you’re coming.”

  Taylor gave the officer a nod of thanks and jerked them forward again and into the dark spirals of the parking garage. Tight corkscrew turns led them down until finally they saw the portable halogen work lights of the crime scene crews leaking between the concrete levels. Before they hit the actual crime scene they turned onto a level filled with official vehicles: two patrol cars, an unmarked Impala, the crime scene investigative unit, and Medical Examiner’s van.

  Thankful that the nightmare car ride was over and vowing never to let Taylor drive her again, Lucy grabbed her cane and climbed down. She and Taylor walked down the rain and oil-slicked concrete ramp to the lowest level, their crime scene.

  Don Burroughs, the Major Crimes detective, met them at the perimeter demarcated by crime scene tape. They gave their names to an officer manning the scene and followed Burroughs down a path that CSU had cleared.

  “Glad to see you back on your feet, Guardino,” Burroughs said.

  “Thanks for sending over the food for Nick and Megan,” she replied. “And thanks also for the other.” Burroughs had arranged for a specialist to clean her home after the police were done processing her mother’s body and the rest of the evidence.

  “Kim actually took care of it all. Figured Nick wouldn’t have time to cook or shop between trips to the hospital.” That first week, Lucy had spent in a fog of drugs while the surgeons took her back for three surgeries to excise the dead tissue and clear up pockets of infection.

  “Tell her we all very much appreciate it.” Damn, she should have tried to keep track of everyone who’d helped out and sent them thank you cards or something. That’s what her mother would have done. “The boys good?”

  “Yep.” He beamed proudly. “I helped coach Don Junior’s basketball team to the playoffs.”

  Nick volunteered to coach Megan’s soccer team as well. Lucy never had the time—missed more games than she attended.

  They reached the lowest level of the garage. More halogen work lights flooded the area, centering on a man’s body lying face up on the concrete. He was dressed the same as the man on the motorcycle who’d grabbed June. A few feet away the bike sat, a helmet dangling from its handlebars.

  “How much longer you gonna need that?” Burroughs asked, nodding to her cane.

  “Maybe months, maybe forever.”

  “That sucks.”

  Taylor stared at the dead man. It wasn’t the prettiest of corpses—not with the blood and brains and bone splayed open where the man’s face used to be. “Did you get an ID yet?”

  “Meet Kerry Gibbons.” Burroughs nodded to the corpse.

  “Cary like Cary Grant?” Taylor asked, taking notes on his phone.

  Burroughs did a double take, frowning as if he had no idea who Taylor was talking about. “If I didn’t know you had a girl friend, I’d be worried about you, Taylor. No, Kerry, like Terry Bradshaw but with a K.”

  “As opposed to Carrie Bradshaw with a C?” Taylor pushed, egging Burroughs on.

  “Jeezit, give me a break. Anyway Kerry—with a K—Gibbons’s name fits him more ways than one. Guy was basically a gorilla for hire.” Burroughs smirked at Taylor as if daring him to challenge his knowledge of obscure primates.

  “Cause of death?”

  “You mean other than the shotgun blast to the face? No signs of other trauma. Livescan fingerprints made the ID.”

  Lucy ignored them to focus on their crime scene. The parking structure made for a perfect killing ground. Secluded, no cameras or security, one way in and one way out. They followed the path cleared to the body and then back again to Burroughs’ white Impala.

  “They’re not going to find anything.” She nodded to the crime scene techs scouring for evidence.

  Burroughs heaved his shoulders in a sigh. “I know. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have anything to work with.”

  His poker face was better than Taylor’s but not by much. “Taylor told me you linked five other victims to Gibbons.”

  He glared at Taylor for spoiling his surprise, then pulled a swath of evidence bags from his overcoat and placed them on the trunk of the sedan like he was dealing cards. “Five drivers’ licenses found laid out around Gibbons’ head. Like a halo or crown or something.”

  “Any local?”

  “All out of state.” Taylor leaned over them, aiming his phone to take pictures of each license. Lucy didn’t bother; she knew Taylor would send them to her cell as well.

  “St. Louis, New Orleans, DesMoines, Sacramento, Bakersfield.” Lucy frowned at the unfamiliar names belonging to the licenses. All men, ages between mid-twenties and sixty, three Caucasian, one Hispanic, one Asian, different appearances…nothing to show any connection.

  She turned back to Burroughs. “NCIC?” The National Crime Information Center was the first step in linking a name to any crime.

  He lowered his head as if they were huddled up, fourth and long. “All five dead. All within the past five months. All murdered execution style. Twenty-two to the head. No evidence except for the bullets.”

  “So Gibbons was a hit man?” Taylor asked, bouncing on his toes. “Maybe he was shot by someone he was supposed to kill himself?” />
  “Gibbons doesn’t exactly have a rep as a mastermind. Can’t see him traveling all over the country, setting up on vics, doing a hit, and walking away again without leaving any trace.” Burroughs shrugged again. “But maybe I’m wrong.”

  “First thing, let’s check with Homeland on the travel,” Lucy said.

  “I’ll start knocking on doors, see if there’s any word on the street. And check for any alibis,” Burroughs said. “We’re getting warrants on his house.”

  “Don’t forget electronics and data storage,” Taylor put in.

  “Taylor, reach out to the other jurisdictions, get their files for us,” Lucy said. Locals were more apt to quickly respond to a polite personal phone request from the FBI than any paperwork Burroughs submitted.

  The medical examiner’s people were getting ready to bundle the body in preparation of moving it. “If Gibbons wasn’t behind those five murders, then who killed him? And why leave the drivers’ licenses?” Taylor asked.

  That wasn’t what was bothering Lucy. Didn’t even make her top three. “More worrisome is: what’s his connection to Daddy? And does Daddy have anything to do with the five dead men.”

  “Who’s Daddy?” Burroughs asked.

  As Taylor filled the city detective in on the threats against June and what happened earlier today, Lucy flipped through the drivers’ licenses. New Orleans. St. Louis. Sacramento. DesMoines. Bakersfield. The places bothered her.

  “All dead within the past five months?” she asked, interrupting Taylor. “You’re sure about the time frame?”

  “Yeah. Why, is that important?”

  Lucy stiffened, her bad leg spasming with one of the damn electrical shocks that made her muscles quiver. The pain was secondary to a memory: Seth’s voice. Telling her that five months ago he’d met the man called Daddy.

  What had he said? That was the day Daddy killed him.

  Chapter 26