by K. J. Dahlen
"Yeah, there were seven rules. They meant a lot to him and he passed them on to us."
"How fatherly of him. Too bad his rules don’t mean diddly squat to me."
"If you knew them, they would mean something to you. In fact if you knew them, you would know the truth about our father."
"Your father, not mine. Micah murdered the only father I knew."
"You can’t deny that Micah was your father. Don’t deny the truth. Micah was a stickler for the truth."
"Micah’s truth was as warped as he was. His truth is not my truth."
"You should take the time to learn the rules though. Even if you deny Micah’s parentage you are one of his children. These are the rules he lived by."
"You live by them. I want nothing at all to do with them or him."
There was silence on the line for a moment then Sam asked, "What else did my mother tell you?" There was a note of curiosity in his voice that sounded genuine.
"Did you know she’s been following the three of you since Micah stole you from her? She’d followed you for sixteen years and watched you point a gun at me the day your father died. She told me the only thing that stopped you from shooting me was a phone call from Shawn."
"Let’s just say for a moment that what you’re telling me is the truth. Would you like to know what Shawn told me that day? Would you like to know why he saved your life?" Sam taunted her.
"Sure, tell me what your brother said that day that saved my life?"
Sam chuckled before he told her, "He told me not to shoot you. He said that you wouldn’t suffer enough that way. We both heard our father’s screams and saw the flames that killed him. He said that if I took the shot and ended your life, your death would only spoil what we had planned for today."
"He was there that day?" Sable asked as she glanced at Nick and Max.
Sam chuckled again. "Yeah, he was there. He was standing on the other side of the house."
"Then he must have seen your mother. She was watching you and Shawn must have seen her. He followed her back to her hotel. He’s the one that strangled her yesterday."
"Look, I don’t know what you’re game is but my mother died sixteen years ago in Oklahoma. Our father told us she died in a house fire."
"No, she died yesterday. She was strangled in the Kensington hotel. Her friend Annie died in the house fire. By the way did you know Micah was the prime suspect in the fire? The police couldn’t find him to question him, but he was number one on their suspect list."
The line went dead and Sable smiled. She closed her phone nodding at Nick. "Sam wasn’t too happy to hear the truth."
"It probably won’t make a difference, but at least you’ve given him something to think about."
"He didn’t believe me. I did find out that Shawn was at the Reardon house the day Micah died. He was on the other side of the house. It’s possible he saw Abbey and followed her back to her hotel. If he did, then he’s known where she lived all this time and he would be the one to murder her."
"Yeah, they are tying up all the loose ends before they go after the bigger prize," Max replied.
"We have to find out what they’re up to and protect ourselves until this is over. There has to be more in the papers we got from the warehouse."
"Well, let’s go back and look again," Nick told her.
Chapter Ten
Twenty minutes later they walked into what was left of their office. Glass shards and bullet holes littered the walls and furniture. Someone had taped plastic over the broken windows. Sable stopped in the middle of the room. "What a mess."
"Yeah but nobody died," Max commented.
Sable turned around frowning. "What did you say?"
"I said nobody died. Why?"
Sable glanced over at Nick repeating Max’s statement. "Nobody died this morning. They weren’t shooting to kill this morning; they were shooting to terrorize us. They wanted us out of the office. The question is why. We didn’t go to Gabriel and Emma."
"Haven’t we already been through this?" Nick asked.
"We thought they wanted us to run to our witnesses, but what if they wanted something else?"
"Like what?"
"Sam mentioned something about Micah’s seven rules of life. He lived by these rules and he taught the boys to respect them."
"Did Sam tell you what these rules were?"
"He only mentioned the first rule."
"And what would that be?"
"Never kill without a reason."
At the moment the door opened and Gabriel and Emma came inside escorted by the two officers assigned them. "Oh dear, what happened here?" Emma commented as she looked at the chaos.
Sable turned and opened her arms to encompass the room. "You want to know what happened this morning? Okay I’ll tell you. We stopped Sam from killing a man at three a.m. I stopped at home around five to change and my house exploded around me. I barely escaped with my life. At seven Nick and I came here to catch up with Max and before long we were dodging bullets. Bullets that were meant to kill, only they didn’t.
"We went over to find out if Greg was still alive only to find him missing and his escort dead. Then on top of all of that we hear Sam and Shawn firebombed your house as well."
"What?" Emma was shocked by the events. She glanced at Gabriel then she went over to the sofa to sit down. Gabriel followed slowly and sat down beside her.
"Are you sure it was Sam?" he asked.
"Sam has already admitted it." Sable took a deep breathe adding, "There is more bad news. Sam isn’t alone in his quest. He has a twin brother named Shawn."
"Sam is a twin?" Emma whispered.
"There is more bad news, I’m afraid," Nick interjected.
"What could be worse than that?" Gabriel asked.
"It appears your son Greg is involved with Micah’s sons."
Gabriel’s head snapped over with a shocked look on his face. "What the hell did you just say?"
"I said it appears your son Greg is involved with Micah’s sons." Nick repeated his statement.
"How can you even say that?" Emma cried out.
Nick reached in his pocket and took out the photo Max had printed earlier. He handed the photo to Gabriel watching the older man’s face for his reaction.
"Where was this taken?" Gabriel demanded.
"It was taken from a security tape at Scott Black’s home after the attack on him this morning. Greg and whichever twin he was with tried to murder Scott early this morning."
"This can’t be true," Emma whispered. "This can not be true." Emma grabbed Gabriel’s arm and brought his face to hers. She read his shock. Looking over at Sable she begged her, "Please tell me this isn’t true."
Sable walked to Emma and knelt down beside her. "I’m afraid it is true. I saw the security tape. I was there at Scott’s house this morning. They came in through two different ways."
"Maybe it was Sam and Shawn, not Sam and Greg?" Emma hoped.
Sable groaned. "Emma, you may not want to face this but it was Greg’s face in the photograph. They didn’t get close to Scott, but they did murder two of the men he had working for him."
"I don’t believe this. Why would Greg join them?" said Gabriel. "I raised him to believe in the law and all it stood for. Why would he turn his back on that?"
"I don’t know, but the evidence points to the fact that he did," Sable told him.
"We’re going to move you to another office, one a little more protected than this one. We’ll join you when we get the evidence picked up. We have a lot of questions that maybe you can help us answer."
A few minutes later they began cleaning up the paperwork. Gathering all the papers, Sable carried them to the new offices they had set up in the large conference room down the hall. Gabriel, Emma, and their guards were already there. Gabriel was pacing back and forth while Emma sat on the sofa arguing with him.
Sable glanced their way but continued walking to the table where she arranged the batch of papers she had br
ought with her. Nick joined her a moment later. Max came in shortly after.
Max pulled in his computer and began setting up his station. He left again returning with a fax machine and a printer. Sable and Nick were trying to repeat what they had up on the windows.
Gabriel wandered over to where they were working and observed them quietly for a moment. "Have you spoken to Sam since he called you yesterday?"
Sable paused in what she was doing. "Yes, he called a little while ago. Why?"
"I don’t know. All of this is just a little unnerving I guess. I can’t believe what Micah turned out to be. Now you tell me he kidnapped his own twin sons, bringing them up to be murderers as well and that my own son is somehow involved. It’s just a little too much to believe."
"I know. I find it hard to believe, but it's true." Sable took a moment to sit down. When she glanced at Gabriel, she saw he had aged over the last few days. To her he was a frail old man now where six weeks ago when she first met him he was a proud stubborn old fool.
"Sam called this morning to find out if we were ready for what was still coming. I don’t know what he really wanted but he mentioned something about how Micah raised them, something about Micah’s rules of life. I don’t know what he was talking about and I didn’t have time to ask. Sam did mention Micah’s first rule was never kill without a reason, or some such thing."
"What did you say?" Gabriel whispered.
Sable reached out a hand to steady him. "Are you alright Gabriel?" She stood up and flipped her chair around so he could sit down. When he was sitting, he looked up at her and asked, "You said Micah had rules to live by. Did Sam say anything more about them?"
"Only that he taught them seven rules to live by. The first was to never kill without a reason. I told Sam I didn’t care how many rules Micah lived by, he would be nothing more to me than a killer." Sable glanced over at Nick and saw he was watching the entire exchange with interest. "What do you know about Micah’s rules?"
Gabriel gazed at her with a little of the old Gabriel. "As a young child I taught Micah the seven rules of life. I think my rules are a little different than his, but I taught him about the rules to live by."
"And he passed on a warped set of rules to his own sons. Great," Sable mentioned.
"I passed those same rules on to my own son as well. Greg should have known better than to get mixed up in Micah’s life. I don’t understand that boy."
Nick walked over to where Gabriel was sitting and handed him a notebook. "Will you write down your rules for us? I need to understand just what we’re up against."
Gabriel took the notebook and began to write. Sable walked a few feet away from Gabriel. When Nick followed she asked, "Why do we need Gabriel’s rules? You know as well as I do that Micah’s are going to be totally different."
"I thought Gabriel needed something to think about beside the fact that his own family members are trying to discredit his whole life’s work," Nick told her.
Sable grinned. "Point taken." She was about to make another point when her cell phone rang. Looking at the caller ID she gave Nick a look. "It’s Sam."
"Hello."
"Hey Sis, I think you should know the rules our father taught us. Rule number two, never miss your mark."
"What are you talking about?"
"The Rules. You have to learn them from us but that’s ok. Shawn and I are willing to impart our knowledge to you."
"No thanks. I have my own set of rules to live by and they are nothing like yours."
Sam chuckled. "Oh, but I think our father would insist. Do you remember rule number one?"
"Yeah, I remember, never kill without a reason. So what earthly reason could you have for trying to kill Scott Black? Can you tell me that?"
"That’s a fair question. Scott Black peddles flesh. Plain and simple; he’s a whoremonger. Micah watched as he got around the law by lies and deception. The rules he grew up with were meaningless to Micah from then on. He made up his own rules and they served him well."
"What did you mean when you said rule number two was never miss your mark?"
"Which part didn’t you understand?"
"You went back and murdered Scott… didn’t you?" Sable had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"You are a clever girl. Yes, Scott Black doesn’t live anymore, which brings up rule number three."
"Oh, I can’t wait. What is rule number three?"
"Never leave a witness, Get away quick and clean. Scott had a bodyguard and I’ll tell you what, he was harder to kill than Scott was. He kept getting up, no matter how hard we put him down. Things got a little messy with that one. This of course leads us to rule number four."
"And that is?"
"Never leave any evidence behind that could be traced back to you."
"Of course it is. I expected nothing less from Micah. His twisted mind would want to protect only himself and no one else."
"Micah was a great dad. He taught us to survive in a world full of crime and evil. We can take care of ourselves."
"Yeah and leaving a trail of dead bodies is a plus, isn’t it? The people you murdered didn’t deserve to die by Micah’s hand or by yours. They should have been judged by their own peers, not by you," Sable protested hotly.
"They were judged by their peers," Sam snarled. "They were guilty as charged yet they lied their way to freedom. We’re only settling the score."
"No, Sam," Sable told him, "you are playing judge and jury in a way that ensures no one will have true justice. Sometimes our legal system doesn’t work as well as it should, but for the most part it does work."
"Your so called legal system is nothing more than a joke. Micah took us to watch trials and we saw for ourselves what punishments the guilty were handed. Our father taught us a better way to live. He would often read books to us, books about the way justice used to be served. Those found guilty were often punished right away, not allowed to linger for years in jail."
"You and your brother don’t follow his rules very well do you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well you missed your mark this morning and you told us exactly what you are doing. You left enough of yourselves behind that we can trace the evidence right back to you."
"That’s true enough, but, you see, in this case it doesn’t matter. Once we take the entire family out, Shawn and I will disappear and in six months we’ll turn up somewhere new."
Sable chuckled. "So much for Micah’s master plan."
"What does that mean?"
"Didn’t you ever notice the backs of the papers Micah passed along to you?"
"What about them?"
"He wrote his master plan on the back of those pages. He was going to murder all of us, including you and Shawn then he was going to kill himself."
There was silence on the line for a long moment. "That’s a lie, bitch."
"No, unfortunately it’s true. He was going to murder all of us then kill himself in the end. What we don’t know is why." Sable paused for a moment then added, "Unless it was because he knew he was dying anyway."
"That’s the simple part of his plan. Gabriel started a dynasty based on truth and justice. Over the years that truth has been warped and stained until the basic truth no longer means anything. Micah taught us to remember what truth is important and carry through the sentences set by our ancestors. Our mission is to bring back the old ways and renew the real justice system. The one that doesn’t mollycoddle the law breakers and delivers swift justice."
"That’s not the way the law works," Sable argued.
"But that’s the way it should work. That’s the way it was meant to work and when we’re done, that’s the way it will work again." The line went dead. Sable slowly closed her cell phone.
She glanced over at Nick. "Scott and Curt are dead. My guess is that we’ll find a blood bath over there. He also gave me three more of Micah’s rules."
"What else did he have to say?"
"Micah had a warped sense o
f justice. He taught his sons that the old ways of treating offenders immediately is the way the laws ought to work. He taught them that if you treat the offender the way they treated you, maybe there wouldn’t be so much crime." Sable paused for a moment, something just clicked in her brain. "Wait a minute," she began going through all the papers of Micah’s crime spree. She picked out seven cases and set them out on the table. The cases were Ian Noble, Daniel Adamson, Larry Bryce, Earl Weston, Malcolm Donaldson, Nolan Sykes and Aaron Reiter.
"What’s all this?" Nick asked.
"I don’t know. There’s something about these seven cases that are different from the rest."
"What do you mean? Micah butchered these men like he did all the rest."
"No, these seven died barbarically; he wasn’t quite as vicious with the rest."
Gabriel got up and joined them. When he handed the notebook back to Nick, he glanced down at the cases and frowned. "What have you got there?"
Sable glanced over at Gabriel. "These are part of the cases we’ve tracked to Micah. Do you know these men?"
Gabriel picked up one of the cases and read it through. Then he picked up the rest. After a few minutes he put them all down and told them, "Yes, I knew these men. At one point in my career I defended them in court. I worked as a defending attorney when I first started. But that was a long time ago."
Sable stared at Nick and then turned to look at Gabriel. Then she turned back to the seven cases in front of her. Her mind was working overtime as she stared at the pages in front of her on the table.
"Oh my god," she finally whispered as she turned her head to stare at Nick. She turned back to the pages and began rearranging them. Malcolm Donaldson, Earl Weston, Larry Bryce, Ian Noble, Nolan Sykes, Daniel Adamson and Aaron Reiter.
"It’s been right in front of us the whole time," she finally told them.
"What has? What are you talking about?" Nick asked.
Sable turned to face Nick. "Don’t you see it? It all makes perfect sense."
"See what?" Nick was perplexed. "All I see are seven cases. There are forty-three more over on the other side of the table. What is so special about these seven cases?"
"These cases represent what Micah was going to use to discredit Gabriel. These cases are his MELINDA."