Let Us Prey

by Blake Banner

  I saw her hand slip in his pocket, and then she was clambering aboard and the plane was accelerating away down the river, rising, climbing into the air.

  We pulled up beside dos Santos’s launch, and I clambered aboard. He was slumped against the gunwale, bleeding profusely. I felt his pulse in his neck; it was just a flutter. I looked back toward the shore. I could see the red-and-blue flashing of police units. I looked over at Tony. “Radio in—we are going to need an ambulance.”

  Dos Santos’s eyes seemed to clear for a moment, and he focused on my face. He was an ugly, pasty gray color. He was trying to talk, and I leaned close. “You,” he hissed, “You will go to hell for this…”

  The last words he ever heard were his own, telling himself he was going to hell. That’s how I choose to see it anyhow.

  I felt in his pocket, but the box was gone, as I knew it would be.

  Tony threw me a line, and we tied dos Santos’s boat to his, then towed it back to the harbor. Dehan was there with half a dozen cops waiting for us on the quay. She helped me up out of the launch, searching my very bruised and battered face.

  “Are you okay?

  I shrugged. “She got away. I’m sorry.”

  “And dos Santos?”

  “Dead.”

  She looked down at his body, where the cops were trying to lift him out.

  “I guess he’ll be facing trial somewhere else.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, maybe.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  The captain didn’t look pleased. We sat looking at him across his desk, while he sat looking at the glaring sunshine outside.

  “It’s a less than satisfactory outcome, John. I’m not blaming you, but I have to say that it isn’t up to your usual standard. Either of you.”

  “No, sir,” I said, “We are not satisfied with the result either.”

  Dehan said, “Have you heard from the hospital, Captain?”

  “Duffy is in a serious condition, but he will live. There is also news of the plane, which is why I asked you to come up here. They found the wreckage of the seaplane out at Montauk Point.”

  I frowned. “What about the bodies?”

  “Two pilots. Tamara Gunthersen’s body was probably washed out to sea.”

  “What does the ME say about cause of death?”

  The captain looked surprised. “They crashed in a plane. What do you expect him to say?”

  “Well, sir, I am guessing that dos Santos, with his resources, employed competent pilots. In this weather, there is little reason to crash. So I’m wondering why they did.”

  He looked impatient. “He has barely had time to look at them, but there will be a full report on the cause of the crash and the cause of death. Let’s not try to complicate it any further.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He looked at us in turn and seemed to relent a little. “However,” he said, “I must congratulate you both on resolving a very complex mystery, even if the body count was rather high.”

  Dehan spoke up. “Thank you, sir, but we did not in fact cause any of those deaths. Tamara Gunthersen turned out to be a pretty lethal woman. In my opinion, Detective Stone did well to come out of this alive.”

  The captain gazed at her through hooded eyes that were probably meant to be intimidating. She met them with a smile. Dehan is not easy to intimidate.

  “As I said,” he went on, “I must congratulate you. Your recording via the webcam on your laptop was very effective. You have quite a flair for the dramatic yourself, John. It is just a shame we won’t get to prosecute anyone with the evidence you garnered.”

  Dehan was in a voluble mood and spoke up again, with a grin that bordered on the insolent. “Ms. Gunthersen has at least saved the city the cost of an expensive trial. Sir.”

  “That is not an appropriate observation, Detective Dehan.”

  “No, sir.”

  “All right. It has been a very trying case, for both of you, but especially you, John. I suggest you take a few days off to recuperate.”

  We thanked him and left. It was six o’clock. I dropped Dehan at her apartment on Simpson Street and made my way home. I had a shower, ate a steak, and by eight o’clock I was in bed with a book, falling asleep as the lines crossed in front of my eyes. Gradually, blissful unconsciousness enfolded me.

  I lay staring at the darkened ceiling, wondering what had woken me up. I looked at my clock. It said 2:02. I was still tired. My eyes were heavy. Then the doorbell gave a prolonged jangle, and I knew that was what had woken me. I wondered what the hell Dehan could want at that time of the morning and staggered down the stairs to open the front door. It wasn’t Dehan.

  It was Tamara. She stood looking up at me with that face that should have belonged to an angel. She looked scared and vulnerable.

  “I couldn’t do it.” She said it like it should make sense to me.

  I stepped aside. “Come in.”

  She stepped in and placed her hands on my bare chest. “John, I am so sorry. Tell me you’ll forgive me. I was out of my mind. I was so scared of what that monster would do to me.”

  “You stabbed Hugh Duffy three times in the stomach.”

  “I was out of my mind. I know it was wrong. You have to believe me.”

  “I don’t have to believe anything.”

  I walked away from her into the kitchen and started making coffee.

  She followed, but stopped in the middle of the floor. She looked like a beautiful, frightened child. “You are right to be angry.”

  “Why did you kill the pilots?”

  “They were flying to Bermuda. They were going to take the box to Spain. I had to come back. I had to come back to you.”

  “Why?”

  She smiled. “Because we are partners, remember? We are going to sell the box together. You are going to fix all this. The way you fixed it before, for Emma.”

  I nodded. “Have you got the box?”

  “Yes.” She reached in her pocket and pulled it out to show me. “There is nobody left now to stop us. Baxter is dead, dos Santos is dead.”

  “A lot of people are dead, Tamara.”

  “But they are not important people. People die. People come and go. Emma taught me that. They are not important. Important people are Emma and me, and you can be important, too, if you join us. Steve could have been important, but he was stupid.”

  I poured two cups of coffee and reached in the cupboard for the whiskey. I laced both cups and pushed one across the breakfast bar for her.

  “And if I don’t?”

  She laughed. “Come on! Don’t tease.”

  She came forward and picked up her cup. We were like two old friends having a chat. She sipped and smiled. “So what’s the plan?”

  “The plan is you hand yourself over to the cops.”

  She didn’t seem to register. She blinked a couple of times. “What?”

  “I said, the plan is, Tamara, you hand yourself over to the cops. It’s over. You are done killing people. The box goes back to Duffy, and you go into psychiatric care. It’s over.”

  She sighed. “Come on, John, cut it out. We sell the box, we go away, you and me and Emma.”

  I put down my cup and walked around the bar to stand in front of her. “Tamara Gunthersen, I am putting you under arrest for multiple homicides and attempted homicides…”

  The scream seemed to tear the whole night in half. The blade flashed. I stepped back and stumbled, and that probably saved my life. I fell back on the floor, and she fell on top of me, plunging the blade down toward my throat. I gripped her wrist with both my hands, but I was holding up the full weight of her body and I could feel the steel tip inching closer, until the point was pricking my skin. She leaned forward, straddling my chest, and heaved.

  And then the door busted open. I heard Dehan’s voice shouting, and I have never been so happy to hear anything in my whole life. She bellowed, “Drop the knife!”

  Instead, Tamara raised herself up for a lunge that I knew would ske
wer my neck to the floor. I heard her scream of rage a fraction of a second before I heard the crack of Dehan’s .38, and Tamara’s beautiful, tragic body sank slowly to the floor by my side.

  Dehan rushed to me, checked I was okay, and then checked Tamara. I sat up with my back against the wall.

  “What… Why are you here?”

  She spoke into her radio instead of answering. “Dispatch, this is Detective Dehan of the 43rd precinct, requesting an ambulance at Haight Avenue. One female, seriously injured… Also any unit in the area to respond…”

  And far off I heard the wail of approaching sirens.

  EPILOGUE

  The ambulance had gone, with the patrol car. It was three in morning, and Dehan was in the kitchen making scrambled eggs on rye, and more coffee. I watched her a while, feeling numb and in pain at the same time, and deeply confused also. I sat gingerly at the table and sipped my laced coffee.

  “Dehan?”

  “Yuh.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I came to save your butt, remember?”

  “No. I mean yes, but no, that’s not what I mean. I mean, why are you here saving my butt? How did you know?”

  She sighed and shook her head, and spilled eggs onto the toasted rye on the plate. “Come and eat.”

  I made my way around to the kitchen table and sat. She sat opposite.

  “It was obvious, Stone. She was coming back for you. I waited for her outside.”

  “How was that obvious?”

  “She was in love with you. Don’t tell me you didn’t see that. I saw it straightaway.”

  “How could she be in love with me? She was crazy!”

  “What? Crazy people can’t fall in love?”

  I had no answer for that, so I ate and drank my coffee. I frowned. “How could you have seen it from the start? You didn’t see her till today.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “What? Don’t give me that look. How could you have seen that?”

  “Shut up and eat your eggs.”

  We ate in silence for a bit. Then, I said, “If you were waiting outside, why did you take so long?”

  She looked sheepish. “I fell asleep. When I woke up, her car was there.”

  “You fell asleep?”

  “Gimme a break! I was tired. I got here, didn’t I?”

  We ate in silence again for a while. Then, she grinned and said, “So, a week off, huh?”

  “He said a few days.”

  “A week.”

  “Okay.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I read an article in the New York Times the other day, said there is a steak house up in Vermont that serves the best steaks on the east coast. Family-run joint, on the quay, in a small town called Kennebunkport.”

  “Got to be worth it just for the name, right?”

  “Right. I thought a few days relaxing by the sea, eat a few steaks, drink a few beers.”

  “A few tequilas.”

  “Rude not to.”

  “Set off after lunch?”

  “Sounds about right.”

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  If you liked LET US PREY, then please consider taking a second out of your day and leaving your thoughts behind for others.

  It takes a couple seconds, but seriously would mean a ton to me and help get the word out there about my books!

  To make things quick and easy, here are the direct links. Just click your country and it will take you right to the review page.

  US Page

  UK Page

  CA Page

  AU Page

  Thanks,

  Blake Banner

  LAST CHANCE

  I try to publish new books often. Sometimes even two a month. I wake up, drink coffee, write stories, sleep, then repeat.

  If you’d like to be notified when a new book hits the digital shelves, sign up below and I’ll give you a quick heads up with direct links when that happens. Nothing more. Nothing Less.

  JOIN MY NEWSLETTER

  (No Spam. Ever.)

  EXCERPT OF BOOK FIVE …

  ONE

  “This one.”

  She had her boots crossed on the corner of the desk, at the end of her mile-long legs, and she was leaning back in a pool of lazy September sunshine. She threw the file she had been reading on the desk in front of me.

  I sighed and dropped the one I’d been reading—a disemboweled mob lawyer—into the ‘maybe later’ pile and picked up her folder from the desk. She closed her eyes and made a temple of her finger, as though she were Sherlock Holmes. I was struck, not for the first or last time, by how exquisite her face was. She opened one eye and raised that eyebrow at me. “Are you going to read it?”

  I sat back and put my ankles on the desk next to hers.

  “Simon Martin, thirty-two, beaten and stabbed during a home invasion on the 5th of September, 1999, Bogart Avenue. That’s not far from here. Victim had just got home from work. He had bruising to the ribs and a jaw break consistent with having been punched and he had been stabbed in the chest with a very large knife. Weapon was not found. Wife, Sylvie, was apparently upstairs at the time of the assault, but suffered shock-induced amnesia, so was unable to give a statement…” I gave Dehan a skeptical glance, but her eyes were still closed. I continued. “There were no signs of forced entry. The back door was unlocked and there were footprints in the garden from common white tennis shoes, size ten or eleven. You awake?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You can’t look and listen at the same time? I thought women were supposed to be good at multitasking.”

  She opened her eyes and revealed a total lack of humor. “Really, Stone? Sexist stereotyping, now, are we? That is so typical of a man. The more sensory input you can shut down, the more you are able to focus.”

  I ignored her and looked back at the file, glancing through the pages. “OK. Yeah, let’s do it.”

  “You’re not going to read the rest of the file?”

  “Tell me about it as we go.”

  As we stepped out into the early afternoon, she said, “You know, Stone, you are not an unattractive man.”

  I frowned at her. We crossed the road toward my burgundy 1964 Jaguar Mark II and I thought absently that it was not an unattractive car.

  Dehan continued, which was a little unsettling. “You are not unlike the man, Bogart.”

  “Knock it awf, shweetheart.”

  I unlocked the car and climbed in.

  As she got in the passenger seat, she said, “I’m serious. You’re taller, what are you, six-two?”

  “Six-one.”

  “Perhaps Harrison Ford or Hugh Jackman would be a better comparison.”

  I reversed out of the lot and pulled onto Storey Avenue, headed east. I settled back in my seat and scowled. “Dehan,” I said with a degree of severity. “I know what you are doing. The answer is no, I do not want a woman in my life. What is it with you and trying to get me paired up?”

  “I don’t know, Stone. You’re a good-looking guy, you’re comparatively young…”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re one of the good guys, and believe me, that is rare. It just seems like a waste that you are single. It’s a shame.”

  “We have had this conversation before. And besides, I could say the same about you. Only you are not a good-looking guy. You are…” I waved my hand around, realizing the conversation was getting into dangerous waters. “Anyway, the fact is we would probably both make terrible husbands and wives.”

  She shrugged. “You would be a terrible wife. I would probably be a pretty good husband.”

  “You are a very disturbing woman.”

  She sighed. “That is what my shrink keeps telling me.”

  I took Rosedale North as far as East Tremont, then turned left on to Bronxdale and right onto Pierce. Bogart was the second on the left. I parked outside the Martins’ house and looked at Dehan. She seemed abstracted. I smiled. “I’m glad it was Bogart Avenue and not Karloff.�
��

  She gave a sad smile and climbed out.

  There was a fish sticker in the window that told me that Jesus loved me. Another one told me that even though I did not believe in God, God believed in me. I was pretty sure they were both wrong. Dehan came up beside me and commented, “If they keep putting up enlightening stickers, they are going to block out the light.”

  “Droll.”

  I rang the bell and knocked on the door. Almost like a weird coincidence, the neighbor’s door opened and a woman with a very large, nosy air about her looked at me like she wanted to accuse me of something, but didn’t know what yet.

  “They ain’t in.”

  I smiled the smile of an innocent man and said, “Where are they?”

  “Church. They are always at church.”

  I nodded. “Of course. Can you tell me where the church is?”

  She smiled unexpectedly and looked a hundred years younger. “Out back.” She pointed, in case I didn’t know where out back was. “Fowler Avenue. Right at the back, here… You can walk it.”

  I thanked her again and we descended the steps we had recently just climbed up. It was a three-hundred-yard stroll through an odd neighborhood that blended leafy trees in the first russet shades of fall, with very homey red brick houses and soulless concrete yards fenced with steel tubing and wire mesh. The overall vibe was a very unhappy one.

  The church was small, and judging by the design, early 20th century Methodist. It was a sturdy, red brick building with towering gothic arches and a rotund tower at the very back. It stood in its own grounds, surrounded by towering maple trees and gloomy-looking chestnut trees. There was a cute, red brick rectory on the left. The door, which stood open, was now dull, but once must have been a vibrant red with a set of heavy, black, iron hinges. A flagged path led to a small graveyard on the right, and beyond that there was a large garden. There, some kind of church fête seemed to be in progress. There was bunting strung from the trees and there were stalls selling secondhand clothes, books, vinyl records, record players, and old rusty tools, as well as homemade lemonade, chocolate brownies, cookies, and cakes. There was a big crowd swirling around the church grounds.