Cassie McGraw Box Set: Books 1-3

by David Archer

  His hands were strong, and they were making it hard to breathe. I could feel my lungs about to burst, and it looked like there were sparks exploding in my vision. I knew enough to realize that I was close to losing consciousness, but his face was right beside my own.

  A year or so earlier, during one of the times when I was feeling sorry for myself, I had tried to paint my nails. The fingernails on my left hand, because the fingers are so warped, are misshapen and distorted. As a result, I keep them clipped very short, but the nails on my right hand I allowed to grow. When I painted them that night, I had liked the way they look, and so I had started using vitamin E and other products to help them grow strong. I let them grow long so that I could paint them and be proud of them, and it suddenly dawned on me that Danny’s face was within their reach.

  I let go of where I was trying to pull his hands off my throat and turned it over, and drove those nails straight into his eyes as hard as I could. I felt one of them snag in something, and curled my fingers and ripped with everything I had in me, and Danny’s hands came off my throat as he screamed. I drew my knees up as hard as I could, put my hands against the floor and pushed with every bit of strength I had, bucking like a wild horse, and managed to flip him off of me. I rolled onto my back and saw him on the floor, one hand over his face, and there was blood running down it. I pulled back my legs as hard as I could and kicked at his face, and he screamed again. He fell backward until he was flat on the floor, and I jumped up and ran toward the stairs as hard as I could.

  “Cassieeee!” He screamed out my name in rage, and I could hear him on his feet and running behind me. I dived just before I got to the stairs, slid over the edge and rolled down them, but I kept my eye on my Kimber and managed to snag it with my right hand as I rolled past. I hit the wall beside the stairs and caught the handrail with my left, jerking myself to a halt, and I raised the gun as I looked back up.

  Danny was on the second to the top step, and he was holding a cell phone.

  “Drop it,” he screamed at me. “Drop it, or I blow us all to hell right now. That woman in your office? That bomb is on the same signal as the big one here, so you either drop your gun or I push the button. We can die together, if that’s what you want, because I know that Mike is waiting for me in heaven right now. All you got waiting for you is a pit of fire and brimstone in hell.”

  I don’t know how long we stayed frozen in that tableau, but it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. Danny was standing there, holding out the phone like it was a weapon, staring down at where I lay on the steps against the wall.

  I thought about squeezing the trigger, but if I failed to hit his brain, he could drop his thumb on that button and I couldn’t even guess how many people would die. With as much explosive as he had in that room, there was no doubt in my mind that this building would turn into shrapnel, and the shockwave would probably be enough to level buildings all around us. On the one side was the old drive-in restaurant, but there were two newer high-rise buildings on the other. In my mind, I imagined it looking a lot like 9/11 when everything started to collapse.

  But if I didn’t fire, if I surrendered and let him go, there was no doubt that I would die and he might still set the bombs off anyway. He wouldn’t even have to be in the building, he was using a cell phone as a detonator, so all he would have to do is carry that phone out of range and then complete the call.

  “Drop it, Cassie! Drop it now, or I’ll…”

  I shifted my aim and pulled the trigger.

  When I had bought the Kimber, I had test fired it and found that I could hit whatever I was aiming at very well. I had also bought hollowpoint bullets, heavy lead bullets that are designed to expand when they hit something so that they do the maximum amount of damage possible. A regular forty-five caliber slug will make a half-inch hole going in and a three-inch hole going out; a hollowpoint makes a one-inch hole going in, but the one coming out could be as much as eight inches across. Every bit of tissue in between is basically turned to jelly.

  Danny’s wrist wasn’t that wide. My shot struck his wrist dead center, and the flattening lead mass sheared his hand completely off. I watched, fascinated, as it fell away, still holding the phone, and rolled down the stairs toward me.

  Danny screamed, and his eyes went wide as he stared at the stump of his wrist and the blood spurting out. He tried to step back up, but tripped over the top stair and fell onto his back, where he lay screaming. I twisted myself around to get my feet under me, let go of the rail and reached out carefully to pick up the phone. It was one of the old clamshell type, the kind that hangs up and cuts off when you close it, and I flipped it down and watched its lights go out.

  I walked up the stairs again, keeping my gun out in front of me. Danny was laying on his back, staring at the empty space where his hand had been. Blood was still spurting out, and I tried to think of some way to stop it, but I didn’t dare let down my guard.

  I took out my own phone and called 911, told the operator that I needed police and paramedics on the top floor of the building immediately, and then I told her to notify Detective Pennington that it was Cassie McGraw calling. She tried to ask more questions but I cut her off.

  Danny seemed to be getting weak, and when I looked at the copious amount of blood that was spreading around him on the floor, I wasn’t a bit surprised. He looked up at me and tried to say something, but I couldn’t make out what it was. Keeping my gun aimed directly at his face, I squatted down and reached out with my left hand and wrapped it around the stump of his wrist. I squeezed as hard as I could, and it seemed to slow the bleeding.

  “If you fight me,” I said, “I will let go. You’ll bleed out, and save me a lot of headaches.”

  It was almost four minutes later when I finally heard people coming up the stairs. There were two police officers and two paramedics, and the officers instantly drew their guns and aimed them at me.

  “Drop your weapon,” one of them commanded, and I slowly put it behind me and laid it on the floor. I raised that hand high as I fell back onto my butt.

  “I’m Cassie McGraw, private investigator,” I said. “I’ve been working with Detective Jim Pennington on the bombing case, and this is Danny Kendall, the man who’s been doing it all. He’s bleeding badly, and I need the paramedics to take over here.”

  The paramedics didn’t wait for the police to give permission, they swarmed up around me and one of them wrapped something around Danny’s wrist and pulled it tight. He gently pushed my hand away, and it was all I could do to let go.

  “What the hell did you do to him?” It was one of the officers who asked the question, and I pointed at Danny’s hand, still laying on the stairs. They hadn’t even noticed it as they were coming up, but one of the officers almost lost his dinner when he saw it.

  “He was holding a cell phone that was rigged as a detonator,” I said. “There’s a woman wearing one of his bomb vests back in my office, and he said if I didn’t come alone, he would blow her up. When I got here, I found out he had it rigged to do a lot more than that. If you let me get up, I’ll show you what I mean.”

  The officer who had asked the question, whose name turned out to be Elders, actually came over and held out a hand to help me up. He had put his weapon back in his holster, but his partner was still keeping Danny covered.

  “Come on,” I said. “Believe me, you need to see this.” I walked down the hall, limping slightly from the way my hips had been banged up rolling down the stairs, and walked right into the room with all the explosives. Elders stared at the boxes with his eyes wide, then put his finger to his lips and motioned for me to come back out of there. When we were thirty feet from the room, he stopped and looked me in the eye.

  “Is that really C4 in there?”

  “Considering he’s been using a lot of it lately,” I said, “I’m pretty sure it could be. I know I’d rather have somebody else deal with it than me.”

  Elders looked back at the room for a moment, then no
dded his head as he turned back to me. “Yeah,” he said. “Like the ATF, or somebody like that.”

  Pennington came up the stairs just then, with several more officers. Elders told them what I had just shown him, and then Pennington had me lead the way once again. Once they saw it for themselves, Pennington got on the phone to the FBI.

  The paramedics decided they needed to get Danny to a hospital, and Pennington detailed three officers to follow and stand guard. All of them together rigged a blanket stretcher to carry him down, and then the paramedics loaded him onto their stretcher cart and took him out to the ambulance. It roared away a few moments later, and then Pennington turned to me.

  “Cassie,” he said. “Would you like to tell me just what the hell happened here?”

  I told him the whole story, starting with Annette’s arrival at my office. When I told him that I had figured out that the common denominator in all of the different events was a cloud, his jaw dropped and he slapped himself in the forehead.

  Then we got to what happened when I arrived at Hamilton, and I gave him a description of the woman who had been downstairs when I got there. We were down in the lobby at this point, and I grinned as I pointed up at the security cameras. Somewhere in the building, I was sure, was a DVR that would have her picture on it.

  What I hadn’t figured out is why she took off. If I had been Danny, and had an accomplice with a gun down below, I’m pretty sure I would’ve told her to stay put and shoot anybody but him who came back down the stairs. Pennington said he’d be sure to ask her about that, when he finally found her.

  “You done good, Cassie,” he said. “I understand why you couldn’t call for backup, but you damn well managed to get your man.”

  My eye suddenly went wide and I stared at him. “Damn!” I said, and he looked startled. “Dammit, Jim, I forgot to tell the son of a bitch that I was making a citizen’s arrest!”

  He stared back at me for a couple of seconds, and then started chuckling. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll make absolutely certain everybody knows that this was your collar. And I need your gun, for ballistics, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said, handing it over. “And can you send somebody to my office? There’s a lady sitting there with a bomb wrapped around her, and I’m pretty sure she’d like to get out of it.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The paramedics were gone, so Pennington wanted to take me to the hospital to be checked out. I told him I was fine, but he insisted on walking me back to the Cuda. To be honest, I think he just wanted to drool over the car a bit more, because he did.

  “Somebody called in a report that a car like this was racing through the city,” he said after a moment. “It never even occurred to me that it was you. If it had, we might have gotten to you sooner, given you some backup.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” I said. “He was holding the phone, ready to hit whatever button would set off the bombs. He’d warned me before that if I didn’t come alone, then a lot of people were going to die.” I pointed to the top floor of the building. “How much of this block do you think that would take out?”

  Pennington looked up, then turned back to me. “I don’t know,” he said, “and I don’t want to find out. I’m going to have enough to do for the next few days, anyway. We’ll have to check out every employee of this cloud company, see if any of them were aware of what he was doing, and maybe we’ll find his accomplice while we’re at it.”

  “That bitch is probably long gone,” I said. “Just blows my mind that she took off the way she did…” I froze suddenly. “Oh, my God,” I said. “Jim, Danny was planning to blow the building no matter what happened. That’s the only reason he would’ve told her to get out, rather than stay there to back him up. He was planning his endgame, and he was going to take me out with him!”

  Pennington stared at me for a few seconds, then nodded. “I think you’re right,” he said. “It definitely makes sense.”

  I shook my head. “Sometimes it blows my mind just how crazy people can be,” I said. “Danny must have figured that taking me out while blowing himself to bits would get him some special reward in heaven. He had no intention of ever letting me stop him; he always planned for me and him to die together, I’m sure of it.”

  “Well, you beat him,” Pennington said. “And, hey, you even managed to take him alive. From what I’ve read about you, that’s almost a surprise. Most of your suspects end up dead, so you came out ahead of the game this time.”

  I flipped him the bird. “Smart ass,” I said. “You need me for anything else right now?”

  “We’ve got to get your official statement,” he said. “Like I said, this was your collar. We need to get everything down on paper, so the prosecutor has plenty to work with. You might as well come on to the station now and get it over with. Save having to come back in tomorrow.”

  I nodded, then turned and opened the car door. I slipped in behind the wheel and dug the key out of my pocket, and Pennington grinned when I started it up.

  “That is one sweet ride,” he said. “If you ever decide to sell it, please let me know.”

  I grinned at him. “I’ll see you at the station,” I said. “I’m gonna swing through someplace and get some coffee on the way. I’ll be there shortly.”

  He gave me a thumbs up sign, then turned and walked away. I put the shifter into reverse and backed up, then turned the car around and made my way around the little building to the driveway exit. I eased out into traffic, headed for the coffee shop that was only a couple of blocks away.

  The back of my neck began to crawl, my own personal spidey-sense telling me that something was not right. I looked around quickly, then checked the mirrors. There was no one in sight that appeared to be any kind of threat, but I saw an SUV coming out of a parking lot and easing slowly up behind me. There was a car between me and it, and I couldn’t see the driver, but the crawling sense wouldn’t go away. Somehow, I just knew it was the woman who had been with Danny, so I guess I must have noticed her at the corner of my eye without realizing it as I passed that parking lot.

  The light ahead of me turned green and I started forward, then suddenly turned to the right without bothering with a signal. I watched the rearview mirror, and saw the SUV make the turn behind me. There was no one between us, now, and I could barely make out enough of the driver to know that it definitely looked like the woman who had greeted me when I got to the cloud building.

  I reached for my gun, then cursed under my breath. Anytime a weapon is used in a shooting during the investigation of a crime, the weapon has to be surrendered for ballistics verification. Pennington had taken my gun, telling me that I could pick it up the following day from the city ballistics lab. I was completely unarmed, but if I was right about who was driving that SUV, she certainly wasn’t.

  The last thing I needed was to try to confront her alone, so I downshifted to second and pushed my foot down on the accelerator. The Cuda shot forward, and I saw the SUV accelerate behind me. I waited until the last possible second, then yanked the wheel and took the next left turn, fishtailing around the corner and fighting the car back to the straight and narrow. The SUV came around the corner behind me, but it couldn’t take them the way the Cuda could. I had gained some distance between us, and I wasn’t planning to give it up.

  I was on a main thoroughfare, with two lanes going in each direction and a center turn lane. Traffic wasn’t nearly as heavy as it could be, so I floored the gas pedal and shifted to high gear. I was up to almost seventy miles per hour, but that SUV was still back there, and finally starting to gain on me again.

  What is it with crazy people, that they tend to find followers who will participate in their insanities? I didn’t have a clue who this woman could be, but she was obviously attached to Danny Kendall. There wasn’t much doubt in my mind that, if she caught me, she’d be planning on making sure I wasn’t around to testify against him. That might not be the only reason she wanted me dead, but I’m sure it was
in there, somewhere.

  While traffic wasn’t heavy, it wasn’t light enough for me to really open up the car. I fumbled for my phone and got it out, then hit the button to call Pennington.

  “I’ll take mine black,” he said as he answered, and I remembered that he thought I was at the coffee shop.

  “Forget about coffee,” I said. “Danny’s accomplice is on my tail, and I don’t think she wants to swap recipes. I’m on South Lewis, going south and about to pass 36th Street. She’s driving a white SUV, I think it’s a Ford.”

  “Take the turn, head for Harvard. I’ll have officers waiting when you get there.” The line went dead, and I dropped the phone on the passenger seat.

  Making that turn wasn’t easy, and I spun out. I came to a stop in the middle of the street, facing back toward Lewis, so I dropped the shifter to first gear and dumped the clutch while I yanked the wheel to the left. The rear tires screamed, but the car spun around and took off again.

  Unfortunately, that gave the SUV the chance to catch up to me. It came around the corner just as I was starting to move again, and I saw a hand come out the driver side window holding a gun. It fired once, and the back window of the Cuda exploded into a million pieces.

  “Geez, another window?” I shouted. “This has simply got to stop!” I rocked the wheel from side to side, keeping the car moving from one side of the road to the other. The idea was to make as hard a target as possible, but there’s only so much you can do on a narrow city street. I couldn’t get over about fifty miles an hour, because of so many cars parked along the side, but the crazy woman behind me didn’t seem to care about them at all. She sideswiped at least two, but didn’t even slow down when it happened.

  There was still almost half a mile to go before I got to Harvard, and then my heart leapt into my throat as three kids ran out into the street in front of me. I yanked the wheel to the right, trying to avoid hitting them, but there was a pickup truck parked at the curb. I cut the wheel back to the left, knowing I was just about out of time, and jumped right over the curb and into somebody’s front yard.