The Nick Lawrence Series

by Brian Shea

  He stared at the evidence sticker affixed to the bottom right of each photograph denoting the tech who took it.

  Nick’s eyes widened, and he jumped up from his seat, knocking over his chair. His eyes danced from case file to case file, picture to picture. There, neatly written at the bottom of each photo, was the same name: Ed Spangler.

  Nick looked up at the dry erase board set along the back wall of the room. Notes had been tossed up over the last several days. Simmons’s profile annotated in red marker. Male. Short: 5’03-5’05”. Age 30-50. Cop?

  Cop?

  Ed Spangler was all those things except a cop. He was a tech, but he had been there all along in the backdrop. Every scene. Every photo.

  In haste Nick fumbled with his phone almost dropping it. He banged his fingers on the screen calling Simmons. It rang five times before going to voicemail.

  Nick left a frantic message, “Hey it’s me. I figured it out! I know who it is—the Ferryman. Spangler—it’s freakin’ Ed Spangler. Call me as soon as you get this!”

  It was unlike Simmons not to answer but Nick assumed that she was either in the shower or had fallen asleep after washing off Scalise’s caked bloodstains. He looked at the time. It was already 6:00 a.m. He realized that Anaya might be awake soon, and he didn’t want her to find him not home. There was still time to make it right or at least give her the illusion he’d kept his promise. The last thing he needed right now was for her to have another panic attack. Nick dashed out of the conference room leaving the disarray of files as a testament to his mind’s unique system of reasoning.

  Traffic was light leaving the city and Nick arrived home well under his normal commute time. He quietly slipped the key into the lock, turning it cautiously. He entered, hoping that Anaya was still resting. He didn’t want to wake her if she was. Nick stood unmoving after closing the door, listening intently to the silence.

  Satisfied he’d returned home before Anaya had awakened to his absence, Nick crept to the back room of their small ranch styled home and into the bedroom. Dawn’s light had delivered its pale welcome, making it easy to see into the room. The bed spread was turned down and an indentation was left where Anaya had slept, her slender form pressed into the old, non-resilient mattress. There was no sound. No shower running. No lights on. A nothingness that stirred a panic so deep that Nick momentarily froze.

  Nick called out to her, “Anaya?” Soft at first and then booming louder, “Anaya?!”

  He willed himself to move and ran from room to room hysterically searching for Anaya. She was gone. He’d failed her. Failed to protect her. Failed to keep his promise.

  Nick raced to the door and out into the brisk air. He descended the stairwell in a mighty leap. He turned the ignition to his Jetta and then stopped before pulling out from his parking space. He had no idea where she was. He had no idea where he was going. His phone vibrated. A lifeline thrown at this most despairing of moments.

  “He’s got her!” Nick gasped into the phone. His voice cracked, revealing his lack of control and desperation.

  “Slow down. Who’s got who?” Simmons asked.

  “Ferryman. He’s got Anaya!”

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  “Did you get my message about Spangler?” Nick asked frantically.

  “No. I just saw that I missed your call. I passed out after my shower,” Simmons said.

  “It’s Spangler. The Ferryman is Spangler!” Nick yelled.

  “Ed Spangler, the crime scene tech?”

  “Every scene. He was at every one of my scenes. He’s been there the whole time. In the background, but always there nonetheless.” Nick tried to control his breathing and reset his calm. Without it he’d be useless.

  “I’ll call you back in a minute,” Simmons said.

  The call ended, and Nick sat. The heat from the vent began to fight back against the cold, and the fog from his panting dissipated, no longer visible.

  His phone alerted to Simmons’s incoming call, and he answered before the first ring ended.

  “I’ve got a ping going on Spangler’s phone. It hasn’t moved in a few hours. I’m going to send you the address,” Simmons said.

  “I’ll meet you there. Call it in. Send everybody!” Nick said.

  “Already did. I told the locals to stage if they arrive before us. I’m moving now. I just hope we’re not too—” Simmons said.

  Nick ended the call not wanting to hear the end to of that sentence. The phone buzzed its receipt of the address Simmons had forwarded. He forwarded it to Jones and then dialed his number.

  A thick groggy voice answered in deep drawl. “Hey, I was just about to give you a call. I did some digging and—”

  “He’s got Anaya! Meet me at the address I sent you!” Nick said into the phone, hanging up without waiting for a response.

  He punched it into the map function on his phone and gunned the car in the direction of Spangler’s last known location. The navigation map gave a twenty-three-minute arrival time. He planned to cut that time in half, revving the engine as he accelerated west out of Georgetown.

  28

  Nick’s Jetta hugged the turn as he rounded his way into the posh Cedar Park neighborhood. The ornate exteriors of towering houses merged into a blur as he doubled the posted speed limit of the quaint suburb. A fleeting sense of déjà vu gripped him as he slammed to a stop behind Simmons’s idling Taurus. A long, crushed-stone driveway led up a gentle rise to the impressive house. Standing there looking up, he recognized he’d seen this house before. He’d not only seen it but been inside it on two uniquely separate occasions. This would be the third and, hopefully, final visit.

  Nick withdrew his Glock and exited the car. Simmons, as if on cue, exited hers. The two met in the middle with guns pressed down at the low ready.

  “Where’s the cavalry?” Nick asked. “I figured they would’ve been here by now.”

  “Not sure. I called it in. They should be here any minute,” Simmons said, looking back and forth between Nick and the white-bricked exterior of the house.

  “We don’t have a minute!” Nick said through gritted teeth.

  “My thoughts exactly. Let’s put an end to this once and for all!” Simmons said, looking down at her duty weapon.

  “This asshole is never going to see the inside of a courtroom,” Nick hissed. His eyes gauged the reaction of his new partner.

  “Agreed,” Simmons said, reciprocating his anger.

  They made a low-profile approach in tandem, shuffling quickly along the grass in an effort to minimize the sound of their footsteps. The light glared off the glass of the windows, masking any visual of the expansive home’s interior.

  “I know this house,” Nick whispered as they moved.

  “What do you mean?” Simmons asked quietly.

  “Simon Montrose, the sex trafficker. It’s his house. Same house I arrested him in and the same one he was killed in,” Nick said.

  “Why here?” Simmons asked.

  “Not sure, but whatever the reason it’s definitely not by coincidence. Nothing has been thus far,” Nick said ominously.

  Simmons nodded and the two continued pressing forward.

  Stacked against the white brick of a gabled arched doorway, Nick pressed the latch. The door was unlocked. Nick looked back into the intense green eyes of Cheryl Simmons.

  “I’m following your lead,” Simmons whispered. “You move and I’ll be right on your ass.”

  Nick pressed his thumb down on the ornate doorknob, a bronze lion’s head with the tongue for a latch. The tension of the dark wood door released as the weather seal was breached, making a miniscule suction sound. Nick put his palm on the center of the hand-carved stained marble oak of the door and pressed firmly. The door swung wide. The cloud cover kept the sky a washed gray, but the home’s numerous windows allowed for what little light there was to fill the vastness, bouncing off the reflective marble flooring.

  The point of no return reached. No hesitati
on in the fatal funnel. The two agents made a smooth entry into the foyer. Simmons keeping her word, drafting off his hip as she snaked to the right, opposite Nick. Both took up points of aim, visually clearing as much of the main room as possible without any unnecessary progression forward. They stopped and listened.

  There was nothing to indicate anybody else was inside. Then a scream. Nick immediately recognized the echo of Anaya’s voice as it bounced off the high walls that extended up to the vaulted ceiling. The reverberation of the sound disoriented the pinpoint of its origin. Another voice, less clear, and more mechanical cut through the ensuing silence following Anaya’s desperate plea. The deep rhythmic pulse of the Ferryman’s unfeeling voice inflamed Nick’s rage.

  Nick looked at Simmons and she nudged her chin in the direction of an open spiral staircase that led to the second floor.

  Without a word Nick moved up the winding steps, taking them two at a time. He ascended with reckless abandon. His elbows tucked against his ribs, and his gun slightly cantered in the center of his chest enabled him to maintain a tight but stable shooting platform, even at his enraged pace.

  Nick crested the landing as Anaya released another bloodcurdling scream. The sound exploded in Nick’s ears, causing him to stumble awkwardly as if it had physically impacted him. Simmons stepped up, grabbed his shoulder and righted his leaned position.

  The direction of the sound was more clearly identifiable in the closed space of the second-floor hallway.

  The only unnatural light seeped from underneath a paneled wood door located at the end of the hallway.

  Anaya’s words stole the air from Nick’s lungs. “Please don’t! I’m pregnant! My baby! No!”

  A robotic voice muttered a response, unclear above the whimpers and screams of his cherished Anaya. Then a loud crack like that of a bullwhip cut the words short. Nick ran toward the door, disregarding any attempt to tactically mask his approach. The screams beaconed him, propelling him forward at an inhuman pace.

  Nick didn’t break stride hitting the door with his left shoulder at full speed, his mass multiplied by his speed. The force had a devastating effect on the decorative interior door, splintering the frame. The door flung wide, scraping the floor as one of the upper hinges snapped.

  Unable to control his momentum, Nick tumbled onto the hard tile, smacking his head. A dizzying pain shot across his forehead temporarily blinding him. Nick shook off the discomfort as glittering stars fluttered across his vision. Nick spun on his back, scanning for Spangler.

  His eyes were still watering from the impact when he saw Anaya in a chair in the center of the sparsely decorated room. Her head slumped forward and her body limp. Nick fought the urge to vomit. Standing beside her was a short figure in a black hooded sweatshirt. A dark mask covered his face and the outline of his eyes was barely visible through the red tint of his wire-rimmed glasses. In his right hand was a short whip. His left held tightly onto Anaya’s chair back.

  A loud groan roared from the masked man. Nick pivoted, still on his back, and took aim between his knees at the dark figure.

  Two loud bangs rang out from his right as Nick watched, connecting the pieces of the adrenaline-filled millisecond. His mind put the moment into a slow-motion replay and he watched as the second shell casing pitched free, tumbling away from Simmons’s weapon as the payload was delivered to the intended target.

  Nick followed the path of her aim and saw that the masked figure was slumped forward, kneeling awkwardly next to Anaya. His hand still gripping firmly the back of the chair.

  Anaya sat unmoving and silent.

  Nick exhaled deeply, suddenly aware he’d been holding his breath. He gasped as he scampered across the floor on his hands and knees. Her body was tied firmly to the chair, totally immobilizing her. Only her head was unrestrained and flopped indiscriminately as Nick ran his hands over her body, searching both visually and tactilely to assess the damage. He totally disregarded the man slumped to his left. Nick’s only care in the world was that of his love, Anaya Patel.

  He pressed his index and middle fingers hard into the side of Anaya’s neck waiting for desperately for an answer. The faint bump of her heartbeat gave Nick the strength to quell some of the dread and allowed the bile in his throat to recede.

  Nick then turned his attention to the hooded man slumped next to him. His eyes observed the black zip tie securing the man’s gloved hand to the back of Anaya’s chair. Nick tried to understand the significance of it but was totally baffled.

  The two holes in the center of the sweatshirt left little question, but Nick pulled the mask down to check vitals. The glasses fell to the ground revealing the dead eyes of Ed Spangler. His mouth was covered in the same silver duct tape as Anaya’s.

  Nick’s mind reeled at the strangeness of this visual inconsistency. He spun to relay this strange turn of events to Simmons and instead found himself facing the squared barrel of a department-issued Glock 22.

  29

  “You?” Nick questioned, as his rage exploded.

  He sprawled backward from Simmons’s muzzle, climbing on the body of the crumpled crime scene tech.

  “Sometimes the things we do have repercussions, Nick. Sometimes you cross paths with someone who bites back,” Simmons said.

  “I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about!”

  Nick glanced at his gun. It was on the floor a few feet away on the opposite side of Anaya’s chair, where he’d put it when checking her pulse.

  “Not a chance you get to it before I put a round in your head. But if you think you’re quick enough, then by all means, please go ahead and try,” Simmons said curtly.

  He put the thought out his head for the time being. He was left with little option but to stall.

  “Why? I’m not seeing any of this. Cheryl, I—what did I ever do to you?” Nick asked.

  “You took my last bit of humanity,” Simmons said.

  “You’re not making any sense! I’ve never met you. Not until this week. What the hell are you talking about?” Nick asked, fearing that Simmons was in some type of psychotic break and worried that if he pushed too hard too fast she would snap.

  “I’ve always had a taste for it. As long as I can remember,” Simmons said.

  “Taste for what?”

  “Death.”

  Simmons looked at the whip in Spangler’s hand. Nick followed her gaze and realized that it wasn’t a whip but was in fact a willow branch, barbed with nubs from where the leaves had been stripped off.

  “Daddy tried to help. He tried to make me better. Beat it out of me. With a branch much like that one there,” Simmons said.

  Nick noted that Simmons spoke with a reverence for either her dad or the whip, or both. Regardless, it was creepy and left him uneasy.

  Nick said nothing. He listened trying to find an angle.

  “It didn’t take. Daddy died, and then there was nobody left to help me with my problem,” Simmons said with a strange curl of her lip.

  “I thought—you said—your parents were killed a few years ago,” Nick stopped himself realizing nothing she’d told him before was true.

  “Nope. Never knew mom. She abandoned me early on. Dad stuck around. He was good to me. Even the beatings were done out of love.”

  “So, you killed him?” Nick asked, buying time.

  “Not me. He was killed by a local homeless man when I was thirteen. Same year I got put into foster care. Same year I got pregnant.” Simmons paused as if giving way to deep thought. “A lot of firsts for me that year.”

  “Jesus. How the hell did you ever pass the psych?” Nick asked.

  “I’m really good at reading people. Even better at manipulating them.” Simmons smiled and her eyes gave a glimmer of crazy. “You know that saying takes one to know one?”

  Nick nodded.

  “How do you think I got handpicked for the Behavioral Analysis Unit? I can track ’em because I am one.”

  “Shit.” Nick muttered.

 
; “Poor little Nick. So lost. So hurt.”

  “I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with me,” Nick said.

  “You will. I’ll make sure of that. Otherwise, all of this would’ve been for naught.”

  The tape covering Anaya’s mouth pulsed, and a murmur slipped through her tightly sealed lips. Her head began to sway, indicating her distressed return to consciousness. Nick saw the flutter of her long eyelashes.

  “Perfect timing!” Simmons exclaimed. “Your sweet little Anaya will get to hear about the real Nick Lawrence. The Nick that I’m all too familiar with.”

  “She knows everything about me. So swing away,” Nick said. His eyes flashed with anger.

  “Not everything. No, not everything. But she will!”

  Nick was silent.

  “Do you think she’ll still love you when this is over?” Simmons asked sarcastically.

  Nick ignored the question and scooted closer to Anaya, and in doing so, closer to his gun.

  “Move again without my permission and I’ll shoot her,” Simmons said matter-of-factly.

  Nick stopped, settling in to his new position a few inches closer but still too far to give any potential advantage. He stared intently at Simmons, evaluating the woman he’d gotten so close to over the past few days. Seeing her now, the red of her hair framing her face and giving her a wildness that only fueled the fire of his boiling rage.

  “I know that look. I know it all too well. You want to kill me?” Simmons chided.

  “More than you’ll ever know,” Nick retorted.

  Simmons chuckled. “I doubt that. I know a thing or two about wanting to kill a person.”

  “I get it now. You’re a sick person. But what I don’t get is what this has to do with me?”

  “Simon,” Simmons said.

  “Montrose?”

  Simmons’s head nodded up and down, moving slowly for added effect. Didn’t you find it the least bit strange that his house is where this little journey ended?” Simmons asked, never taking the gun off him.