by Vivien Sparx
Closer. He could smell hay and manure. A barn. An old barn that had seen better days. He heard a sound like shuffling feet on hard dirt, and then a horse snickered softly.
He crept closer.
The walls were splintered, sun-warped clapboard, and rusted pieces of corrugated iron. Beside the barn was a low timber shed, and off it at right angles was an iron gate. Behind the gate was a horse.
Stone clamped his hand over the flashlight and switched it on. There was a dull red glow of light – enough to get his bearings. The barn door was on the other side of the gate. He climbed over. The horse seemed to sense his proximity. It stomped a hoof on beaten dirt and skittered sideways. Stone ignored it, eyes fixed on the dark cavern that was the open barn door.
He stepped into total, absolute darkness. The barn was huge. The smell of hay was stronger now. Stone stood still and listened for long moments.
The scurry of rats, the sound of a small breeze through the gaping rotted timber walls, but no sound of life. No sound or sense that people were nearby. No sobs, no movement. Not that he could tell.
He backtracked to the gate, used the flashlight again. There was a narrow path worn into the ground. Stone followed it past another shed, this one made of steel, painted drab green. The double doors were chained and padlocked. Stone pulled the doors an inch apart until the chain came up tight, then aimed the flashlight through the gap. He saw a tractor on a solid concrete pad. The machinery seemed to fill the whole space. He turned the flashlight off, kept moving.
At the end of the path he re-joined the gravel driveway out front of Hank Dodd’s house.
It was a brick ranch-style building, low and sprawling with an iron awning that ran all the way along the front. The house was enveloped in darkness and eerie brooding silence.
Stone crept across the building’s frontage until he reached a set of steps that led up onto the porch. He put his foot on the bottom step, tested it – and heard a distinctive ‘click’
Stone was blinded by sudden light. He threw his hand up to shield his eyes, frozen for a second and cursing bitterly under his breath. Above the front door a bright spotlight glowed like a warning beacon, lighting the porch and the front door – triggered by a motion sensor.
Fight or flight? Stone had a split second to decide.
Fight.
Instinctive, reactive. Innate.
He lunged up the stairs, reached up for the light, and unscrewed the bulb until the porch was plunged back into darkness. Then he flattened his back against the wall beside the door and counted slowly to ten, expecting to hear the sound of heavy footsteps and see interior lights being switched on.
Nothing. Silence.
Darkness.
Stone allowed himself a long steadying breath.
Okay. The place is deserted. No one is home. So how do you do this, Jack? Do you check all the windows? Do you try to work the lock somehow, or do you break down the door?
He didn’t have the time he needed to go around the house checking windows, or the tools he needed to work the lock. And words like ‘subtle’ and ‘discreet’ were not the kind of terms many people had ever used to describe Jack Stone.
Decision made.
He peeled himself off the wall, stood in front of the door and kicked out hard – a sidekick using the heel of his boot.
The door was timber, standard in every way with a simple pattern routed into the surface. The lock was brass. Stone’s kick landed just below the lock and splintered the timber. The door sagged but the lock held. He kicked a second time and the door exploded back hard against its hinges.
Stone stepped inside. Pushed the door partly closed and switched on the flashlight.
The interior was open-planned – a lounge dining area where he stood, and as he swept the flashlight around he saw a well-appointed kitchen off to the left with glass doors that must have led out onto another porch on the side of the building. He swept the flashlight back, saw a door on the other side of the room. It was open. Stone saw polished timber boards on the floor. A hallway.
There were four doors, two left, two on the right. He checked them all. Three bedrooms and a fourth room that had been made into an office. Stone spent two minutes in the office. There were papers spread haphazardly across an antique desk. Stone saw purchase receipts under a horseshoe paperweight and an open ledger, but no sign of the missing girls. There was a bookcase behind the desk. One shelf was lined with paperbacks and a few larger hardcover books that looked like accountancy texts. He ran his finger along the paperbacks. Stone didn’t recognize any of the titles or the authors. The books all had cracked, worn spines. They seemed to be a collection of sex stories. There was about twenty books in the series. The rest of the bookcase was filled with framed photographs of people Stone didn’t recognize and didn’t care about. He stomped back into the living room.
He called out, “Margie! Margie Bevan!” and then dropped flat on his stomach and put his ear against the cold timber floorboards. It was the best way to pick up sound. Stone heard the refrigerator motor running, felt it’s vibrations through the floor, and he could hear the sigh of the wind as it swept over the house, but nothing else.
No reply, no muffled sounds. No response at all. He called out again, listened in the silence for long seconds.
Absolutely nothing.
He went into the kitchen. It smelled of cooking oil and vegetables. It was a large space with a long bench, lined with electrical appliances. Stone checked the sink. Saw a single coffee mug, upturned to drain dry on a wire rack. He pulled open the door of the dishwasher. Two plates, a couple of forks. No sign that extra food had been prepared.
Stone glanced at his watch. It was 10.30pm.
He went back out onto the front porch, left the door wide open. He was figuring the math as he walked back along the trail towards the road. It was ninety minutes until the bar closed. Maybe another thirty minutes after that before Dodd got home and realized what had happened – and realized Stone was responsible.
Two hours in total. Two hours to find some kind of proof before Hank Dodd discovered that war had been declared and planned his revenge.
Stone looked up. The cloud was heavier. Lower.
A storm was brewing over Windswept, Arizona.
Twenty-One.
Stone parked the Chevy out front of the police station and crossed the road. There was a narrow service lane between the general store and the laundromat; a dark passageway piled with discarded empty cartons and trash cans waiting for pickup. Stone stood in the entrance to the alley, his back against the bricks and waited.
He couldn’t see the blue SUV. It was parked closer to the bar, but that didn’t bother him.
Stone stood in the darkness for fifteen minutes. One guy walked past the laneway without looking sideways. He had come from the bar. He was a little unsteady on his feet.
Stone waited.
Five more minutes. He could hear noise. Not specific sounds, but rather the collective sounds of voices and footsteps coming closer.
He resisted the temptation to look out along the street. Just stood with his back against the wall, breathing steadily, perfectly calm, everything that was about to happen rehearsed in his mind so the actions would be automatic.
Shuffling feet came closer and then suddenly stopped. Not just one man. More. He heard voices; men’s voices that were slurred and made rowdy with alcohol. He heard the jangle of car keys and then suddenly one of the men growled, “What the fuck?”
There was a brief silence. Stone heard the sound of more movement out on the street, then a loud thump – the sound of a fist being slammed against metal.
“I think they’ve been slashed!” A voice said. “Every one of ‘em!”
Stone stepped out onto the street.
The two men were standing on the sidewalk. One had his hands on his head in a pose of exasperation. The other was crouched beside him, inspecting the front passenger-side tire of the SUV.
Stone smiled. “Loo
ks like you boys have some car trouble.”
The two men turned, ten feet away. The crouching man got to his feet and snarled.
In Jack Stone’s experience, bar fights and street fights like this one always followed a convention – an established order of events that wasn’t written down anywhere, but somehow always followed.
First would come the stand-off. Both parties would keep their distance, assessing the opponent. This might last a minute, sometimes a little less as threats were exchanged and the energy built. Then, finally, one of the protagonists would begin the fight, usually urged on by a bystander in the crowd.
But Jack Stone didn’t follow convention.
The two guys shaped up. Exchanged glances.
Stone went for them.
And he was angry.
At the diner, he had put both men down because he had wanted to be left alone. He had used just enough violence to negate the threat. But that was then. Now Jack Stone wanted answers, and the safety switch that controlled his rage was turned off.
He hit the closest man with a straight right punch that struck him on the line of his jaw. It was the shorter one – the guy who had pulled the gun at the bar earlier in the day. Stone wanted to take him out first. The punch wasn’t his best – he didn’t have his feet planted because he was still on the move. The blow sent the man staggering backwards and he fell to the ground.
Instantly Stone turned on the other man. He was the one with the sticking plaster across his nose. Stone turned, ducked under a roundhouse punch, and stayed low. Counter punched from a crouch. Put all his energy into the strike that had every ounce of his weight and muscle behind it. The punch smashed into the guy’s unprotected ribs. Stone heard the distinct crack of bone. The guy seemed to fold forward like a heavy sack of cement. As he did, Stone came up from his crouch and lifted his knee into the man’s face. He flew backwards, arms out flung and his body crumpled against the side of the SUV. Stone wasn’t finished. He went after the guy. Caught him by his shirt front and held him up. Snapped his head forward, cracking the broad boned expanse of his forehead down across the man’s nose in a classic head-butt. The man went limp. He dropped to the ground. Didn’t move.
The second guy was on his feet, reeling away. Stone lunged for him. The man let out a painful groan. Stone raised his arm and used the point of his elbow. Drove the bone right into the man’s face. Blood gushed. Stone heard teeth snapping. The man began to fall sideways and Stone had to hold him up.
He threw the man face-first over the hood of the SUV. Reached under his coat and found the gun. Tossed it across the road, then took the man’s wallet and stuffed it into his own pocket.
He grabbed the man by the hair at the back of his head and drove it down against the vehicle.
“What are you doing in Windswept?” Stone growled. His voice was low and menacing but measured and controlled. “What are you here for?”
He lifted the man’s face up. The guy’s eyes were wide and wild with pain. His chin and shirt-front were red and sticky. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground. He was shaking, maybe going into shock. Stone smashed the man’s head onto the hood again. Heaved his head back up and stared into his face.
“Don’t make me angry,” Stone warned. “And don’t make me ask again.”
The man was gasping, choking on his own blood. Stone lined the man up with a right, cocking his fist beside his ear like it was a hammer. The guy threw up his hands in a feeble attempt to protect his broken face.
“We’re visiting Dodd,” the man groaned.
“You’ve been staying at his house?”
The man nodded.
“Why?”
The man started to sag at the knees, becoming heavy and limp, like his body was starting to shut down. Stone shook him. The man’s eyes fluttered, came open again, streaming tears.
“Girls,” the guy said, the word slurred through broken teeth. “We wanted to buy a couple of girls.”
Stone’s face grew bleak and merciless. “The girls who are missing, right?”
The guy nodded.
“From Dodd?”
The man shook his head. “Not Dodd. He doesn’t have them.”
Stone frowned. He shook the man hard. “Who does? Who has the girls?”
The man shook his head. “Don’t know. We’re waiting.”
Stone let the man fall. Kicked him when he hit the ground. Drove the heel of his boot down into the man’s ribs. The guy rolled under the front of the SUV and Stone left him.
The second man was crumpled in the gutter, his back against the door panel of the SUV. Stone crouched down and put his face an inch from the guy’s.
“You came here to buy the two girls that were kidnapped, right?”
The guy balked. He wasn’t totally inert. His eyes started moving like he was looking desperately for an escape. Stone slapped him hard across the face.
“Right?”
The guy nodded.
“You’re buying them from Hank Dodd, right?”
The guy frowned. It was instant, and responsive. Not a reaction that could be faked in the circumstances.
He shook his head. “We’re waiting at Dodd’s,” the man said.
“Where are the girls?”
The man shook his head. Stone raised his fist, lined up the punch, threw it, but deliberately aimed wide. Punched a dent into the SUV’s door panel the size of a grapefruit. The man flinched and let out a gasp of fear.
“Tell me the truth. It’s your last chance. Where are the two girls? Where is he keeping them?”
Stone cocked his fist again. His knuckles were bleeding, skin grazed red raw.
“We don’t know,” the man said. “He doesn’t have them yet. That’s why we’re waiting.”
Stone snarled his anger and frustration. “Who is Harper?” he snapped.
The guy shook his head. “Never heard of him.”
Stone hauled the man to his feet. Ripped his wallet from his back pocket, then smashed his elbow through the passenger side window of the SUV. The window imploded, spraying tiny shards of glass through the interior. Stone reached in, unlocked the door.
“Get in.”
He heaved the man into the vehicle, then went and dragged the first man from under the front wheels. “Get in the car.”
The guy had the keys, but his hands were shaking and slick with his own blood. Stone put his elbow through the window, sending a hail of glass across the guy slumped in the passenger seat. He flung the driver-side door open and bundled the man in.
There was blood everywhere. It was over the upholstery, leaking down from their broken faces and over their clothes.
Stone held the door open and leaned in close, his words just a menacing whisper.
“Get out of town,” he said. “Go now, and don’t ever come back.”
He took their wallets from his pocket. Tore out their drivers licenses. He held them up.
“I’m keeping these,” Stone said. “So now I know where you live. And let me tell you right now, one day I’m going to come and pay you both a visit. It might be next week. It might be next month, or maybe next year. You’ll never know. And you boys had better not be involved in anything to do with sex slaves or young girls when I show up on your doorstep. Because if you are, I’m really going to hurt you,” he said it like he meant it. “Understand?”
The two guys nodded.
Stone gave them one last, long dangerous look, and then walked away. Walked back to the Chevy and gunned the engine. Drove back to Lilley Pond’s house with only half the answers he wanted, and even more questions.
Where were the two missing girls?
And if Hank Dodd wasn’t holding them, who was?
Twenty-Two.
He arrived on Lilley’s doorstep with his t-shirt soaked in blood. And there was more blood on his fists and arms, and on his forehead.
Lilley’s face was pale and white with shock.
“It’s not my blood,” Stone said. He headed to the emp
ty room where he had left his knapsack. Found another pair of jeans and a fresh shirt.
“Hank Dodd’s blood?” Lilley’s voice was a tremulous little whisper of utter disbelief.
“No. Not yet,” Stone said grimly. He headed for the bathroom, stripped off his clothes. Bundled them up and threw them in the bin under the washbasin. “I went to Hank Dodd’s property and broke down his door,” Stone said. “I found nothing. Nothing at all. This is from the two guys who were at the diner yesterday. I met them outside the bar tonight. They ran into my fists – a lot.”
He turned on the shower. Stepped under the stinging hot needles of spray, sluicing himself clean quickly. As he washed, he filled Lilley in on the events of the night. She leaned in the doorway, her face a mask of shock.
“You did that to them?”
“Yes,” Stone said.
“Was it worth it?”
“Yes.” Stone said. “And it was satisfying.”
He shut off the water. Lilley pulled a towel from the rack and held it out for him as he came from the shower recess in a cloud of grey steam. “They confessed,” Stone explained. “They told me they were waiting at Hank Dodd’s property. They said they were waiting to buy the girls, Lilley. The two girls who were kidnapped.”
“From Hank Dodd?”
Stone shook his head and dressed quickly. “No. They said they were waiting at Dodd’s property, but he wasn’t the one holding the girls. There is another man involved.”
Lilley’s eyes went wide. “Who?”
“They didn’t say,” Stone frowned. “That’s what we need to work out.”
Lilley lowered her head, seemingly lost in a fog of her own thoughts. “What happened to those two men? Where are they now?”
Stone’s face was hard as granite. “They’re gone, Lilley. They’ve left town. They’ll never come back.”
She frowned and then nodded, her face a confused mixture of emotions. “So Hank Dodd is involved – but he’s not the man you are after.”