Thriller Box Set One: The Subway-The Debt-Catastrophic

by Dustin Stevens

  Once my revolution was complete, I used a trailhead parking lot to turn around and made a second pass going the opposite direction, the same way Lou and I had traveled earlier.

  Going as slow as I dared, I spotted the place where we had pulled over, could see the sun twinkling off the cascade of glass that had been Lou’s rear windshield still spread on the ground.

  A mile or two later, I spotted the misshapen streaks of black whipping across the road, the smell of charred rubber still faint in the air where the truck had made a hard turn.

  Following the same path, I even chanced a quick trip down the road, tracing it for more than five miles before giving up, the network of backroads in the area too extensive to check everything.

  They were gone.

  Which left me with only one choice, the original one that I had been putting off for the better part of an hour, hoping that an easier option would present itself.

  An option that now didn’t seem to have any chance of ever materializing.

  With my hunger and thirst both sated, my skin and clothes both dry for the first time since leaving the motel that morning, I returned to the thoroughfare encircling the lake, finishing my second loop. Keeping a watch for anybody that seemed to be out of place, lurking with no real reason for being there, I spotted nothing more than a couple of fishermen wiling away the time, nowhere to be and all day to be there.

  A lifestyle I could only dream of, an existence I hadn’t known in my entire adult life.

  Maybe at the end of all this.

  Assuming I was still breathing.

  A quarter of a mile from the cabin, I turned down a dirt lane, taking it clear to the water’s edge. Ending in nothing more than a small turnabout carved into the hard-packed earth, I followed it three-quarters of the way around the circle before wedging the Charger between two trees and killing the engine.

  As far as I knew, nobody had yet made the vehicle. I had taken special care to keep it hidden from sight, and I had to assume that if anybody knew that’s what I was driving, they would have made a move for me while I was outing doing reconnaissance.

  Right now, it was an unmarked ride, a status I would like to keep for as long as possible.

  Leaving it parked there, I grabbed up the duffel from the floorboard beside me. Extracting the Beretta, I slid the barrel into the pocket of my pants, the handle sticking up just in front of my hip, a new age take on the Wild West gunslinger.

  The knife I stowed in the rear pocket on the opposite side, giving each hand an option at a weapon in short order should the need arise.

  Leaving the rest with the car, knowing I would have time for nothing more than that if things came down to it, I eschewed the shoreline. Sticking to the trees, I cut a serpentine path amongst them, my footfalls silenced by the thick layer of pine needles beneath me.

  In my nose was their heavy scent, as thick as cleaning solution as I worked my way forward, stopping frequently.

  As best I could tell, the only sounds were the ones that were supposed to be there, a good sign.

  As Uncle Jep had drilled into me more times than I could remember, a quiet forest was always the one to be concerned with. The animals have a far keener sense of danger than we ever could, with their own particular brand of warning us.

  We just had to be smart enough to listen for it.

  A full five minutes after leaving the Charger, I came upon the house from the opposite direction as earlier that morning. Stopping just shy of it, I forced myself to slowly count to one hundred, watching everything for movement.

  Content that there was none, I stole my way along the back of the house, working from the corner to the outside of the deck. Staying on ground level, I made a quick trip the length of it before retracing my steps and heading in the opposite direction.

  Best bet was, whoever had eyes on the place had them turned inward, peering through the glass of the rear doors. That way they could see everybody that came inside, regardless of their point of entry.

  And that meant I needed to stay behind it, well beyond its sightline.

  My first visit, I had just needed to get inside. Being seen wasn’t quite such a concern.

  This time, I needed to be more cognizant.

  After all, this wasn’t a fact-finding jaunt so much as a hunting trip.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  The back end of Talula Davis’s department issue rig was mangled badly, but like Tim Scarberry had said, it was mostly cosmetic. By keeping the engine running as they talked along the side of the road, she had managed to avoid being contacted directly by the enormous pickup, a single shot of which would have folded the back end up like an accordion.

  As it was now, she had no rear windshield, would have nothing to protect her if somebody were to take a second shot, no way of controlling the temperature inside or even really hearing over the rush of wind pouring in behind her, but those were all minor things she could deal with.

  Especially given her mood in the wake of the meeting with Charbonneau, his red face and his raised finger images that kept playing across her mind, no matter how many times she tried to push them aside.

  It was not the first time the man had had the temerity to be misogynist, that being something she had dealt with from him and Tanner both since the day she’d hired on. It wasn’t even the first time he had been condescending, speaking to her as if a small child in need of scolding.

  But it was the first time he had done both, committing the triple indignity of questioning her integrity and ability as a deputy in the process.

  Taken together, it had been too much.

  Anger still simmered just beneath the surface, the muscles and tendons pulled tight in her chest and collarbones, visible each time she glanced at the rearview mirror.

  Just as clear was the tempest of hostility roiling behind her eyes, concentrated fury ready to be aimed at whoever was foolish enough to come her way.

  Each moment since storming out of the office, she had expected her phone to ring or the radio on the dash to spring to life. She had planned on picking it up, hearing Charbonneau scream and yell, a big man when hiding behind a desk across town.

  In the course of his outburst, he would cite her insubordination, use it as grounds for dismissal, tell her to collect her things, drop off the truck keys, and never return.

  Not that she could really blame him if such a thing were to come to pass. She had probably crossed a few lines, had acted in a way that no low-ranking employee ever should.

  But she would be damned if she ever apologized for it, every last word she said complete truth.

  Having heard nothing from the office, Davis pointed her vehicle in the only place she could, doing the sole logical thing that occurred to her.

  She would continue working the case that had been given to her, seeing it as far as she could for as long as she could.

  She would just be damn smart in how she approached things, knowing that whatever scintilla of help she might have garnered from the office was now gone.

  Either way, it wasn’t like there was a chance in hell she could walk away from this.

  Twenty minutes after leaving the office, she pulled back up to the same spot she’d been in earlier that morning, making a k-turn so the nose of her Bronco was pointed toward the exit in case she needed to leave in a hurry. Climbing out, she removed her weapon from its holster, bending her elbow and tucking it tight against her shoulder.

  With her head cocked to the side, she stood, her eyes searching, waiting for any sign of something that shouldn’t be there.

  Aside from the ticking of her engine a few feet away, there was nothing. A few birds chirped overhead, stray spots of sun managed to filter down through the trees, but as far as she could tell, nothing was out of the ordinary.

  Moving in a diagonal path, she went toward the front door, putting one foot across the other, going in a slow and easy pace.

  “Don’t.”

  Just a single word, it sent a charge the
length of Davis’s spine. Stuck halfway between her Bronco and the front door, she whirled toward the sound of it, dropping to a knee, her weapon extended before her.

  Sweat dripping down her face, her breath came in short gasps as she stared to the southern corner of the house, seeing nothing.

  “I am with the Sheriff’s Department!” she yelled. “Come out with your hands up where I can see you!”

  Continuing to move her gaze from side to side, she saw nothing, not even a shadow out of place.

  “Lou, it’s me,” the same voice called.

  Taking a moment to register, Davis exhaled slowly, the front end of her gun dipping a few inches.

  Tim.

  “Dammit, Tim,” she said, using the toe of her boot to push herself upright. As she did, she released her left hand from the grip of the weapon, lowering it to her side.

  A moment later, Tim emerged from the far edge of the cabin, his hands held wide, a near copy of their first encounter on the back deck hours before.

  “We really need to stop meeting like this,” he said.

  Not in the mood for sarcasm – or much of anything for that matter – Davis merely glared his direction.

  “What the hell are you doing back here?” she spat.

  Taking a few steps further, Tim measured her, taking in her words, the look on her face.

  “I see the shock has passed.”

  Thinking back on her explosion earlier at the office, she ventured that it would be quite a while before anybody could claim that the full shock of the morning was behind her.

  Even if that wasn’t exactly what he’d been getting at.

  “Tim, why are you here? Again?”

  Dropping his hands to his side, he nodded, “Same reason you are.”

  Motioning with the top of his head to the side, he added, “Come on, you need to see this.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Without waiting for a response, Tim disappeared back in the same direction he had come from, the sound of his footsteps falling away.

  Not caring for his second sudden appearance, or his seeming to think he was in control of their interaction, Davis gritted her teeth, shaking her head as she took one last look at their surroundings. Seeing nothing more than on her previous glances, she circled wide around the side of the house, Tim waiting halfway down, his body turned to look in her direction.

  Opening her mouth, a litany of comments and questions lined up, Davis was cut short.

  “So, I was thinking the same thing you must have been after everything went down earlier,” Tim said.

  Pulling up alongside him, Davis made no attempt to bite back the acid on her tongue.

  “You mean, where the hell did you get a gun? How did you learn to shoot it? Did you really think you could just walk away from what happened out there?”

  A faint half-smile was the first response, Tim keeping his upper body turned in her direction. Regarding her for a moment, he nodded, before replying, “Okay, so maybe we weren’t thinking the same thing.”

  Taking a step forward, he added, “You’re welcome, by the way.”

  The same feeling that had washed over her in Charbonneau’s office welled again, threatening to overtake her, to rise up and come spilling out, laying waste to anyone that stood before her.

  In this case, that being Tim Scarberry.

  “No,” he continued, either not noticing or not caring about the stance she was taking, the clear agitation on her face. “What I was thinking was, how the heck did Baxter’s guys know the second we showed up? I mean, we had barely left and they were on us.”

  With everything already lined up in her mind, ready to be unleashed, it took a moment for the words to sink in, for their meaning to resonate with Davis.

  In the time since the yellow truck had arrived, she’d jumped from one extreme emotional state to another. For not a moment had she been able to stop and truly ruminate on things.

  A move that, if she had done it, would have surely led her to the same conclusion Tim was now putting before her.

  “Damn,” she whispered, shaking her head.

  “Right?” he replied, taking a few more steps forward. Walking just to the rear corner of the house, he turned his body sideways. Bending at the waist, he pressed his palms into the front of his thighs, extending a single finger forward.

  Remaining back a few feet, Davis followed the lead.

  “What?” she asked. “Something on the deck?”

  “Come here,” Tim said, using the same hand to motion her over.

  Flicking her gaze from the deck to him and his ridiculous pose, she exhaled slowly, willing herself not to make a comment, not to unload some more of the animosity she was feeling within. Taking two steps forward, she assumed the same stance as him, their arms pressed tight together.

  “Up under the top railing,” Tim said, “on the far side.”

  Squinting her eyes tight, Davis ran her gaze the length of the rail, spotting what he was directing her to halfway down. “What is that, a wasp’s nest?”

  “A camera. That’s how they were able to show up right after we did.”

  Nudging forward a few extra inches, Davis peered tight. Being told what it was, it was easy to pick out the hard line of the device, a small black electronic no more than a couple inches across.

  “How did you...”

  “I figured they would be looking through the glass,” Tim said. “So I skirted the rear, spotted it tucked up under there.”

  Nodding, Davis coupled the information with what she already knew, a few pieces beginning to slowly fit into place.

  “Which is why we’re now standing over here.”

  “Out of the line of sight.”

  “And the reflection of the glass,” Davis said. Shoving herself upright, she took a few steps back, using the corner as a shield. “Smart.”

  Remaining in place another moment, Tim eventually rose to full height before turning to regard her. “You don’t have to sound quite so surprised. And to answer your questions: I got the gun from my Uncle Jep, learned to shoot it from him first, later by the army, and I wasn’t running away.

  “I was just avoiding the hour-long shit show that would have been going back to the Sheriff’s Department with you.”

  Giving one last look over to the deck, he too took refuge beyond the edge of the house. Folding his arms across his torso, Davis could see the front bulge of his gun in his pants pocket, him making no effort to hide it.

  “Speaking of which, how the hell did you get out of there so fast?”

  Looking his way for only a moment, Davis shifted her focus to the trees, pretending to be making another sweep of their surroundings.

  “Long story.”

  A smirk pulled her attention back, though there was no mirth on Tim’s face when she looked. “How ugly?”

  “Enough,” she said, not wanting to get into the details with him, hating the fact that he had even seemed to sniff out what had taken place.

  “Enough that you aren’t still employed?” he asked.

  This time, Davis felt her annoyance spike in a way she didn’t feign to want to control. The time of others around her having control of the conversation, of the events directly affecting her, was over.

  “No, I am,” she snapped, “which, might I remind you, makes me the only law enforcement officer present. I told you earlier you were trespassing at a crime scene.”

  “That was right before I saved your life,” Tim inserted.

  Blood flushing her cheeks, Davis said, “I’m sorry, were you the one that saw them coming and took off before they could run us over?”

  Beginning to respond, Tim paused, his mouth half open. Closing it, he unfolded his arms, patting the air between them, a gesture of placation.

  “Easy. I just said that because I was hoping it would buy me a little latitude.”

  “Very little,” Davis snapped, “which I like to think I’ve already extended.”

  “And I asked if you wer
e still employed because right now there is a ticking clock and two distinct things that need to be looked into. I can get on one of them, but the other you are infinitely better suited for.”

  Again, the thought of pointing out she was the sole one among them licensed to do anything came to mind, ultimately outweighed by wanting to know what he was thinking.

  In the aftermath of her earlier explosion, she had come back to the cabin because it seemed the most logical.

  That didn’t mean she had a clear plan in mind.

  “Yeah?” she asked. “And what’s that?”

  Pausing, Tim studied her a moment, as if trying to get a feel for how serious she was, before stating, “I hit one of the shooters atop the truck. Assuming he didn’t die, they had to take him somewhere for treatment.”

  Seeing where he was going, Davis nodded.

  He was right. She was better suited than he was for such a thing. Her search on the license plate earlier had been a dead end, but that didn’t mean their attackers couldn’t still provide them with a lot of information.

  “And the other?”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  The weapon was in Radney Creel’s hand the instant the sound first penetrated the house. Even over the persistent belching of the air conditioning unit in the front room, the low rumble of a large vehicle was plainly audible.

  Jerking Creel out of the rear bedroom, he padded forward through the house, gun raised to his shoulder, adrenaline pumping. Making his way down the front hallway, he poked his head inside the kitchen to see Elijah Pyle rising from his post behind the table, cigar clamped between his teeth, a plume of smoke engulfing his face.

  In his hands were a pair of the guns he’d spent the last two days oiling, finally having some use for the extensive care they’d been shown.

  “You tell anybody where we were?” Creel asked.

  “I haven’t said a word to anybody but you all week,” Pyle replied. Taking a step to the side, he spit the cigar into the sink, shoving the remaining smoke out through his nostrils, both weapons raised to either side of his head. “Anybody here now, means they must have followed your ass home.”