Shadow Spy (A Bryson Wilde Thriller / Read in Any Order)
Page 19
“Why?”
“I want to know what date the guy wrote on them.”
THEY TORE the place apart, not literally, but in the sense that they looked into every crack, crevice or corner that something as small as a matchbook could be hiding.
If it was there it was being a stubborn little thing.
It never showed its face.
“It must be with the body,” Wilde said.
“We already checked.”
“Apparently not good enough. Let’s go.”
“Tell me we aren’t going back to the body.”
“Can’t,” Wilde said. “I’d be lying.”
He stuffed all the papers from the desk into a large brown bag and headed for the back door.
“What’s all that for?”
“You never know,” Wilde said.
THE RIDE SOUTH into the country was candy to the eyes but the sun turned Wilde into a hot tamale to the point that he had to pull over and put the top up.
They parked at the bridge under a tree and rolled the windows up to where Tail couldn’t climb through. Wilde picked the animal up, held it face-to-face and said, “Here’s a math lesson for you. If you scratch my seats while I’m gone, that’s two lives. Two out of your nine. Get it?”
Tail said nothing.
The air smelled like stale smoke.
They found out why soon enough.
Someone had burnt the house to the ground.
The interesting thing was that no one had shown up to put it out. It died on its own of natural causes.
The shed was exactly as they’d left it.
The body was on the ground next to it.
“Check the body,” Wilde said.
“For the matches?”
“Right.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to check the weeds.”
“I’ll check the weeds,” Alabama said. “You check the body.”
“Take her shoes off,” Wilde said. “See if they’re inside. If they’re not, check the rest of her clothes. Pull them open to where you can see inside.”
“No way.”
“Come on.”
“Why not you?” Alabama said.
“Because she’s a woman, that’s why.”
“So?”
“So, I’d feel like a pervert.”
Alabama shook her head.
“You do the body, I’ll do the weeds. After you do, though, don’t tell her you’re going to call her if you’re really not.”
“Not funny. I need you to do it. That’s too much for me.”
“Hey it was your idea Romeo, not mine.” She chuckled and added, “At least check her mouth first. Kiss her before you go all the way.”
“Still not funny.”
Irrespective, it wasn’t a bad idea.
He checked the mouth with a stick.
Inside there was no red book of matches with a gold B.
He looked up to find Alabama staring at him. “Well, are you going to do it cowboy or not?”
He frowned.
“I think I’ll help you check the weeds.”
HE TOOK THE BACK AREA, walking back and forth and studying the ground with hawk eyes, then widening the circle.
“You’re too far,” Alabama said
She was at least 90 percent right. Even if the matches had started off on the top of the shed and got sucked off by a hellacious wind, it was still doubtful they’d carry this far.
One more pass, that’s all he’d do.
Just one more.
Suddenly he spotted something twenty steps farther out.
He headed over.
“Hey, ’Bama. Come over here and check this out.”
She headed towards him.
“Did you find them?”
“No but look at this.”
88
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Night
FALLON GOT COFFIN-QUIET under Vampire’s bed. Thunder pounded through her veins but she didn’t let it pass a noise out of her lips. Next to her, Jundee was equally still. The voices were getting closer. One belonged to a man and one to a woman, no doubt Vampire and a lover.
They were coming to the bedroom to get nasty.
She could feel it.
She grabbed Jundee’s hand and squeezed.
He squeezed back.
Then something happened she didn’t expect. The voices didn’t turn right at the top of the staircase, they turned left. She exhaled with relief so loudly that she heard the air pass out of her mouth.
Jundee squeezed her hand.
It was a signal.
Be quiet.
This was more of the curse of the briefcase. If she lived through it, she was through. It was over. She didn’t care about any of it any more. She just wanted to be free from it.
Just do what you’re going to do, go downstairs and leave.
Do it.
Do it.
Do it.
No lights turned on from the other end of the house.
That was weird.
Suddenly the flicker of a flashlight scrapped across the wall outside the bedroom, there and gone. Then a strange noise came from the other end of the house, almost like tools clanging together. Then a drill turned on and the bit sank into metal.
“THEY’RE ROBBERS,” Jundee whispered. “The safe must be down there. They’re drilling out the tumbler.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
“How?”
“Out the window.”
“That’s a serious drop,” Jundee said.
“The stairs then.”
“No,” he said. “We might be seen. Just stay here. They have no reason to come in here. They’ll never look under the bed.”
“How long do you think they’ll be there?”
“I don’t know. Ten minutes, maybe twenty.”
“I can’t last that long.”
“Yes you can,” he said. “They already cased the place. They knew right where to go. They’re going to get what they came for and then get the hell out of here. Just stay calm and wait until it’s over.”
“I can’t breathe.”
“Everything will be fine.”
HER BREATH GOT SHORT.
She gasped.
Her chest ached with pressure.
“I can’t breathe!”
“Stop it, they’re going to hear you.”
“I can’t stop it. I can’t breathe!”
She scooted out from under the bed and headed for the door.
“Fallon! Come back here!”
She heard him.
She knew he was right.
She couldn’t stop though.
Not in a million years.
She needed to get out of there.
She needed to get outside.
She needed to get air before she died.
89
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Evening
AT THE KENMARK, Shade spent Friday evening playing the bait while London watched the fire escape through a crack in the curtains from Alabama’s room. Outside the heat of the day still trickled from the asphalt and concrete. That would change in a half hour.
She took a cool shower, as cool as she could stand it.
The spray bounced off her face and hair and head.
Tonight would be pivotal.
Tonight she’d learn if Visible Moon was alive.
Tonight everything would come to a head.
She was ready for it.
The sun sank.
The night came.
She dressed in all things black. In her purse was the Colt 45 Wilde bought for her, together with a folding knife with a six-inch serrated blade. She stepped out of the room, made sure the door was locked and knocked on London’s door.
“I’m heading out.”
“I’m coming with you.”
Shade knew the woman would say that. She had prepared the nega
tive words but suddenly they weren’t right. Suddenly things were serious. London would be a good person to have at her side.
“I’ll leave it up to you.”
“Then let’s go.”
At street level Shade said, “Thanks for coming.”
“Not a problem.”
IT WAS 9:20.
The secret was to find Mojag’s truck, which was supposed to be parked within a couple of blocks of the Metropolitan. That’s where they’d meet at ten o’clock, his truck.
Being Friday night, Denver buzzed.
Cars were cruising.
Drunks were drinking.
Socialites were being seen.
Lovers were groping.
Eaters were eating.
Hustlers were hustling.
Mojag’s truck wasn’t on Larimer. That wasn’t surprising given the fight for parking. The women headed over to Market. There the night was darker. This is the kind of place Mojag would pick.
Lots of people had the idea of parking there and walking over to 16th Street.
There were enough cars for one to block the next.
The women walked farther and farther down the street.
The activity got less and less.
The cars got fewer and fewer.
Then they spotted the silhouette of a pickup truck way down, next to a Volkswagen.
“That’s got to be it,” Shade said.
“Right.”
They picked up the pace.
HEADLIGHTS APPROACHED from behind, moving slowly, not much faster than a walk. It was almost as if someone was studying them—a couple of guys looking for action?
Shade’s heart pounded.
She didn’t need any extra trouble right now.
The lights didn’t speed up or slow down.
Shade pulled the gun out of her purse.
“I don’t like this.”
“Me either.”
Suddenly the car pulled into a parking spot and the lights went out.
A door opened.
Shade turned to make sure nothing was happening that shouldn’t be.
The dark silhouette of a man was standing next to the car.
He was facing them but wasn’t approaching.
His arm rose up.
Then orange fire exploded from the barrel of a gun.
London said, “I’m hit!”
The gun fired again.
90
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Afternoon
WHAT GOT WILDE’S ATTENTION behind the shed was a mound with all the suspicions of a grave. Three large rocks were on it but they couldn’t mask the fact that the vegetation was shorter, much shorter. If something had been buried there, it happened this summer.
Alabama tried to roll one of the rocks off but couldn’t.
“Whoever put these here was a gorilla.”
Wilde laid his suit coat over a rabbit bush, threw his tie on top, rolled his sleeves up and went to work on the rock. He couldn’t stand it up to where he could roll it but was able to pull an edge over three inches, then the other, and work it to the side. The other two were bigger but rounder.
His breathing was heavy.
His body was on fire.
He wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.
“We need something to dig with.”
“Hold on,” Alabama said.
She trotted to the shed and came back with a broken two-by-four.
They scrapped the dirt off, taking turns.
The soil was loose.
Something had definitely been buried there.
THEY GOT DOWN A FOOT and still found nothing.
They kept going.
The sun beat down with every ounce of soul-sapping radiation it had.
“Ouch,” Wilde said.
“What’s wrong?”
He examined his finger.
“Great.”
Alabama took a look. It was a splinter under the skin a good half-inch but wasn’t totally embedded. The edge stuck out, not far, but enough to grab with her fingernails.
“Hold still,” she said.
“Don’t break it off.”
“I won’t,” she said. A beat then, “I’m going to push it through so it comes out the other side.”
Wilde pulled his hand back, not sure if she was serious.
“Relax,” Alabama said. “I only do that with arrows.”
“You wouldn’t be joking if this was you.”
“Stop being a baby and give it up.”
He gave it to her and looked away.
She got a fingernail under the edge, then squeezed down with the other one and pulled. Instead of coming out, the edge broke off.
“Oh, oh.”
Wilde looked.
“’Bama!”
“Hey, that was an accident,” she said. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”
Wilde gave her a mean look.
“Honest,” she said. “It’s old wood. It’s soft.”
He sat down in the shade of a bush and scraped at the open end with a fingernail until enough skin came off to expose the end. Then he kept scraping until the whole thing was exposed and pulled it out with his teeth.
There.
Back to normal.
He stood up.
“That arrow thing,” he said. “If I ever get one, I’ll get it out myself.”
“Fine.”
She smiled.
“What about a spear?”
“I’ll do that one myself too.”
“Okay, but don’t come crying to me when it actually happens. You’re on your own.”
“I’ll take my chances. Cannonballs are different,” Wilde said. “If I get one stuck halfway in me, you can pull it out.”
“I’ll see what mood I’m in.”
THEY KEPT DIGGING—scraping the dirt off, to be more precise. Six inches deeper they hit something.
Fur.
Black fur.
“It’s a dog,” Alabama said.
Wilde scrapped more dirt away.
There was no question.
It was a dog, nothing more, just a lousy dog.
“This is how my life works,” Wilde said. “Get used to it.”
91
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Night
FALLON BOUNDED down the stairs two at a time, trying to stay quiet but needing to get outside before she ran out of air. She didn’t turn around. If someone was behind her she didn’t care. At the lower level she headed for the front door. As she reached for the knob the door opened and she came face to face with a woman.
It was the one from the wreck.
Vampire.
“Someone’s upstairs robbing your safe,” she said.
Then she pushed around and ran into the night.
“Wait a minute!”
She didn’t wait.
She kept running.
“Hold on!”
She took a quick glance back as she ran and found Vampire on her tail. The woman had her dress hiked up to her waist and was moving as fast as she could in high-heels, running on the balls of her feet.
Her speed was surprising.
Lose her!
Lose her!
Lose her!
“Stop, I’m not going to hurt you!”
Fallon lifted her knees up higher, sprinter style. The stitches on her leg were tearing apart and shooting hot pain into her brain. She reached down to see if she was bleeding.
She was.
Badly.
“Stop.”
The voice was right behind her, dangerously close.
Three more steps, that’s how far she got, three more steps, then strong arms wrapped around her from behind and forced her feet out from under her. She fell hard, directly on her chest, with the other woman landing on top.
The wind came out of her lungs.
She couldn’t move.
Her strength was gone.
/> The other woman twisted her over onto her back, straddled her chest, forced her arms over her head and pinned her down.
She struggled with her last ounce of strength.
It was no use.
She was caught.
It was over.
VAMPIRE KEPT HER PINNED but said nothing, breathing heavily, catching her breath, sinking her weight down. Suddenly the explosion of a gun rang through the night.
It wasn’t at them.
No bullets flew by.
It came from inside the mansion.
Someone inside shot at someone else inside.
Fallon twisted but couldn’t get free.
Jundee!
92
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Night
LONDON WAS HIT, how badly and how deep Shade didn’t know, nor did she have time to think about it. She let her reflexes take over, firing at the silhouette, wanting one thing and one thing only, to get him before he got her. Within seconds one of them would be dead.
Bam!
Bam!
Bam!
The shape slumped to the ground. It wasn’t the fast motion of someone avoiding fire, it was the motion of a body that had suddenly lost all strength and was succumbing to gravity. Shade fired again, two more times, into the darkness next to the car, where the body should be. She couldn’t tell if she hit him again or not but didn’t hear anything ricochet into the distance.
“I’m bleeding like a pig,” London said.
“Where?”
“My head.”
It had to be a graze, otherwise she’d be dead.
“Let me feel.”
The woman was little more than a black shape. Her hand made contact on the top of London’s head and she felt nothing. As she brought it down the side, though, the woman’s hair was thick with blood. Then she found the wound.
“It’s your ear.”
“How much?”
“I can’t tell,” Shade said. “Keep pressure on it and stay here.”
“Where are you going?”
“Just stay here.”
GUN IN HAND, she ran over to the shooter, slowing as she got there, keeping her weapon trained. The man was on the ground, not moving, face down. He didn’t twitch or make a sound when Shade shook him. She felt a pulse in his neck and wrist, got nothing either place and rolled him over.