by Erik Carter
As they got closer to the Grand Cherokee, the damage became more apparent. Half the windows were shattered through, and the windshield was spider-webbed. Holes riddled the sides.
“Two guys came and shot the hell out of his Jeep,” Jonah said. “He took them down.”
Brett glanced on either side of the driveway, saw the bodies, nodded. He grabbed the door handle on the Grand Cherokee’s passenger door, yanked. It didn’t budge. He pulled harder, and the mangled door pulled open with a screech.
“Get to hospital,” Brett said.
Jonah felt a quick wave of panic. “I don’t know this area.”
Kim stepped toward them. “There’s one a mile from here, down the road, then north on 441.”
Jonah took another look at the vehicle. It looked like shit, but the tires were intact and the engine was running. If he could get the thing in gear, he could get to the hospital.
Gavin’s feet drug on the concrete as Brett pulled him into the passenger seat and buckled him in. Gavin grunted, his first utterance for some time.
Brett ran back to the Accord, and Kim followed suit, opening the passenger door.
For a moment, Jonah hadn’t been too concerned about getting to the hospital. He had Brett back, the big man who was strong, was a leader. But now it looked like he was going to lose him.
“Where are you going?” Jonah yelled out to him.
Brett looked at him. “TCB.”
Chapter Forty-Four
“This is it,” Kim said. “The northwest office.”
They’d been driving for fifteen minutes, Kim navigating from the passenger seat. And when she pointed out their destination, Silence was initially taken aback. It didn’t look like a police station, more like a bank. One-story. Brick. Very plain, with subdued landscaping fitting of a big chain bank—little bushes and obligatory palms, red mulch.
Silence turned left at the light, pivoting around the corner of the building toward the parking lot in the back, and as he did, the similarities with a bank were even more apparent, as there was a covered drive-through area in the back. Probably had been a bank at one point.
“What type—” A slice of pain in his throat. He grimaced, swallowed. “Of vehicle?”
Kim gave him a confused look. “What type of car does Carlton drive?”
Silence nodded.
“I don’t know.”
That was going to make things a lot more challenging.
Silence rolled to the rear of the parking lot, looking into the idle, darkened vehicles as they passed by. He pulled into an empty slot at the back row, hopped out, and took the Beretta from its shoulder holster.
As he closed the door, he looked through the windshield to Kim, swiped his hand down. Kim took his meaning and ducked below the dash, out of sight.
He traced along the vehicles in the nearest row, peeking inside. He didn’t have time to check each one, so he got as good of a view as he could through each vehicle’s windshield. But that didn’t mean Carlton wasn’t crouched below a dash as he’d instructed Kim to do.
Silence would have to take his chances.
Another row. More darkened cars. No signs of people.
And then he heard an idling engine.
Somewhere a row or two up, its sound muffled by the noise coming from the street beside him, a steady flow of evening traffic.
Another row up. Was the idling sound coming from the parking lot? Or from the street?
For a moment, he considered bolting for the building, abandoning the parking lot search, but the idea of running into a police station armed and with a broken, raspy voice blabbering in broken English about a records room and a former cop and—
An engine roared.
Tires chirped.
Beside him.
Silence had just enough time to jump, enough spring in his feet to avoid the grill, maybe the hood.
But not the windshield.
He smashed into it.
The glass shattered against his shoulder, absorbing his impact, his weight, enveloping him like a brittle, crackling blanket.
He rolled over the top of the vehicle, bounced off the trunk, and landed hard on the blacktop.
His breath was ripped from his lungs, burning the scarred inner workings of his throat.
A groan trickled from his lips.
His eyelids closed. He forced them open.
A black Lincoln sedan idled in front of him, its windshield destroyed. A confetti mess of glistening safety glass sparkled the blacktop. The driver-side door opened. A pair of shoes stepped out. The door shut. The shoes approached.
The groan on Silence’s lips grew louder as he turned his head.
And saw Carlton Stokes strolling in his direction.
Chapter Forty-Five
The electronic beeping that represented Gavin’s heart rate came slow and steady from the EKG.
A mound of bandages bulged off his shoulder, and an IV was connected to his arm, dulling his world.
For a while, his senses had left him. He remembered taking down the final thug outside Carlton’s house. He remembered gasping on the concrete, motionless. And then everything else had come in flashes.
Jonah racing over to him, asking if he was okay, if he could move.
Bits of conversation he couldn’t remember. He’d found a bit of strength, enough to speak.
Flashes of Jonah. His feet. His hands.
Shuffling noises and pain.
Jonah had tried to get him to the vehicle.
Headlights. The crunching sound of tires. And then there was the big guy, Brett. Kim Hurley—she’d been there, too.
The two men had moved Gavin. And his eyes had closed.
He was in the Grand Cherokee.
Then a long hallway. Bright lights. The smell of cleaners, medical supplies.
Green scrubs. White jackets. Questions he didn’t answer.
And then nothing. Until a few moments ago when he’d woken up to the EKG and the IV.
A sound from the other side of the room. He stole his attention away from the IV in his arm, and it took a surprisingly long time for his face to turn toward the door.
Morphine, he assumed.
Jonah entered the room, and Gavin found his eyes, nodded.
Jonah moved Gavin’s satchel from the chair beside the bed and sat.
“Thank you,” Gavin said and tried to smile.
“No sweat. How ya feeling?”
“Drugged-up. Aside from that, I feel like I have a hole in my shoulder.” Gavin grinned and pointed to the satchel, which was now on the linoleum, leaning against the chair. “Hand me that.”
Jonah complied, grabbing the bag and placing it gently at the side of the bed, within Gavin’s reach. Jonah pulled back the top flap for him, then returned to the chair.
Gavin reached inside the bag, grabbed the VHS tape, handed it to Jonah. “Watch it.”
Jonah looked down at the tape, which he now held in both hands. He looked back up. Began to protest.
Gavin cut him off. “Do it.”
Jonah glanced down again. And then he stood. He looked at Gavin for a moment. “Thanks.”
He left.
Gavin reached into the bag again and rummaged through textbooks and notepads until he found what he was looking for.
The Secret of Summerford Point.
He held the book with the same reverence that Jonah had just held the videotape.
Then he opened it.
And he read.
Chapter Forty-Six
Carlton clenched the briefcase as he slowly approached the injured man on the ground.
The briefcase had some heft to it, tugging the handle into his fingers. Two liters of the good stuff were stored inside.
Carlton had been right when he’d thought that Kim Hurley and the big man might be only minutes behind him, that somehow, between them, they would have figured out where he was going. That was why he’d waited in the parking lot for them. Just in case.
It had b
een a good gamble.
Although he’d left what had seemed like an impossible situation behind at the house—Kim hanging from a homemade noose, which had been tied securely both to her neck and to the handrail—Carlton also had strong suspicions that the big man was The Shadow. And the only thing that would confirm those suspicions would be if the man had freed her and chased him down within minutes.
Which he had.
The man lying before him in the parking lot was The Shadow.
But since Carlton had taken the extra precaution, taken the gamble, waited for them, just in case, The Shadow was now incapacitated.
The man’s pistol was several inches away from his outstretched hand, and as the man’s pained eyes looked up to find Carlton, his fingers dumbly reached for it.
Carlton stepped up beside him, put his toe against the gun, casually brushed it away, then looked down upon the man. “Shadow man, you’ve ruined a way of life that good people spent decades building. Years of hard work, scratching and crawling, destroyed in one night!”
He kicked the man hard in the ribs.
The man yelled out in pain, and when he did, the voice was raspy and horrible, almost mechanical yet also earthly, the sort of sound that Carlton was used to hearing from his demolition equipment.
Just the type of voice that The Shadow was rumored to have—deep and growly, unnatural.
Further confirmation.
“You destroyed something that’s taken care of families.”
He gave another kick.
“Loved ones.”
Another kick.
“Medical bills, college tuitions.”
Another kick.
The Shadow writhed in agony.
“And you come in here on some sort of self-righteous vendetta, just like my little bitch of a crippled daughter. Well, you may have ruined things, but you won’t ruin me. I’m in the demolition business, sir. Typically, we work with manual construction demolition—excavators, wrecking balls, things like that. But more and more, I’ve been getting into bigger projects that require implosion. You know, controlled demolition. That gives me access to some really interesting materials.”
He held up the briefcase.
“Even a small amount of nitroglycerin can make one hell of a boom. And I only need a little. Just enough to destroy the record room in that building.” He pointed behind him. “We’ve done a good job covering our tracks, but there are certain government records we just can’t alter. Only an act of God or, say, some sort of explosion will wipe those records.” He reached into his pocket, removed the remote detonator, and gave it a little shake. “Drop off the briefcase, go back to my car, push this button, then all your heroics here will have been for nothing.”
He kicked the Quiet Men again. Harder.
He lined up for another kick…
And felt a jolt of agonizing pain. From his back.
He screamed.
Then lurched forward, looked behind him.
A knife stuck out of his shoulder, wooden handle, its blade half buried.
No. Not a knife.
A skew chisel.
His skew chisel.
Kim Hurley was behind him. She tried to pull the tool from his back. Another rush of pain. The chisel held.
Carlton backhanded her, and she spun around, flopping onto the blacktop a few feet away from The Shadow.
Carlton grimaced as he grabbed the handle. And he screamed again as he yanked the chisel from his shoulder.
Blood streaked off its tip, dripping onto the ground.
He looked down at Kim. Conscious. Barely.
He scoffed and tossed the tool into the darkness of the parking lot. It clattered somewhere in the distance.
Another look at the two piles of waste before him, then he felt the reassuring weight of the briefcase.
It would all be over in a few minutes.
He turned and headed for the building.
Chapter Forty-Seven
The apartment looked menacing as Jonah unlocked the door and swung it open. Dark. Eerie. Full of specters.
And it wasn’t just the visuals—none of the lights were on, the only illumination coming in through the closed blinds and the little lights on the stove and the microwave—but the feel of the place.
Something about the sensation was familiar to Jonah, and it took him only a moment to recognize what it was. The feeling of returning to a deceased person’s living space. He’d experienced it only once before, three years ago when his grandfather passed. Stepping into the house for the first time after, to help his grandmother move some of her boxed items, there had been a strange feeling of the grotesque to the place. His grandfather had lived there. And, in the bed in the back, he had died. The halls, the doorways, the recliner in the living room, the dining room table all carried his image. There was the feeling of emptiness, the chill of an autumn day with an incongruously sunny sky.
And now Jonah’s very own apartment had this feeling. Amber had lived here for two wonderful weeks.
She’d been his wife.
He found himself moving toward the television, the door closing behind him. The tape went into the VCR. A few mechanical whirs from inside the machine as it accepted the tape. Jonah dropped onto the sofa, not bothering to turn on a light. He grabbed the two remote controls from the coffee table. Elbows on his knees. He pressed a button. The TV flashed on. Another button on the second remote. The VCR came alive, more whirs from its insides.
Jonah looked at the remote in his hand. His thumb hovered over the PLAY button.
And hovered.
And hovered…
He sucked his lower lip between his teeth. Bit down. Released.
Pressed the button.
Cloth, filling the screen. A T-shirt. Light green. Green was her favorite color. The VCR displayed PLAY in the upper left-hand corner, an empty timecode field in the right. The blurry green cloth shuffled in front of the lens as she fidgeted with the video camera.
She stepped away. The camera auto-focused, bringing the back of the shirt into clarity, blonde hair, the curves of a feminine figure stepping away toward a metal folding chair, limping slightly, left foot shuffling on the floor.
She sat.
Faced the camera.
And smiled.
Amber.
Jonah gasped.
“Shit!”
He pressed PAUSE on the remote, threw it onto the cushion beside him, looked away from the screen, to the ceiling, his eyes welling.
He couldn’t do this.
He couldn’t watch it.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Silence struggled to see, to think. His usual chaotic brain space was further muddled by the beating he’d just received.
But the flashes of recent memory, the bits and pieces of Carlton Stokes’ words, told him that Stokes was on his way to complete his task.
Nitroglycerin in a briefcase.
Destroy the records and maybe some innocent lives, too.
Get off scot-free.
It was a macabre bit of clairvoyance.
But the future was always changeable. With enough will.
Silence’s eyes wanted to stay shut, but he forced them open and looked toward the building.
Stokes was about a quarter of the way across the parking lot.
Silence brought his hand to his jacket, to his shoulder holster. Empty.
That’s right. He’d lost the Beretta.
He glanced to the side.
There it was. A couple feet away.
Carlton was another row farther into the parking lot, another row closer to the building.
Silence moved his hips toward the gun, put a little pressure to the ground, grimaced, and drug his torso closer, his shoulder scraping the concrete.
His fingers touched metal.
Carlton was halfway through the parking lot.
Silence got his fingers around the Beretta. Lifted it. Heavy. It shook in his hand.
With another surge of reser
ve strength and a groan that sent pain roiling through his throat, he rolled onto his stomach.
He lined the sights on Stokes’ back. A difficult shot. But he had it.
He would need to fire several rounds. Doing so could send several errant bullets at the building.
And there was no guarantee the rounds would bring Stokes down. If he was hit but managed to stay on his feet, he could change his trajectory, get out of Silence’s line of sight, and slip into the building.
With the nitroglycerin.
Better idea.
Silence pulled the Beretta slightly down and to the left.
The sights landed on the briefcase.
One well-placed round was all it would take.
Stokes was closer now, only a couple rows away from the building.
A scuffling sound from the concrete beside him. Getting closer. Kim had recovered and crawled to him.
“Are you … Are you doing what I think you’re doing?”
Silence closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Felt the breath at his core, the center of his being, sensed the cool, humid air on his cheeks, the bit of heat and disruption inches beside his arm that was Kim, felt his touch points, where his body was touching the earth, bumpy blacktop poking through his pants, his jacket, placing pressure on his thighs, elbows, and forearms.
A two-second meditation.
He opened his eyes.
And now his hands were still, the sights aligned steadily on the briefcase.
He squeezed the trigger.
BAM!
A blinding flash. A twenty-foot fireball.
A fraction of a second later, a wave of power and heat rushed over him.
Kim yelled out, put her hand on his back.
The heat passed. Silence’s eyes had closed again, not in meditation this time but from instinctive protection.
He opened them. And saw, through the flames, people running out of the building, gawking at the fire. Screams, yelling.
Stokes had been correct. A small amount of nitroglycerin did make one hell of a boom.