The first pass by Brandt’s house would be to determine if Rigas had been there yet. If he was or had been, Reed would pull directly into the drive, he and Billie both going straight in. If not, he would circle the block and park down at the end, letting Billie go to work, flushing him out if he were hiding anywhere nearby.
Slowing his car just a bit, Reed crossed over the adjoining intersection and made his way onto Brandt’s street, the homes looking much the same as the neighborhood he had just left. In many of the windows he could see individuals and families, their lights on, going about their business as usual.
Again feeling his pulse rise Reed rolled past Brandt’s home, careful not to slow his speed or tap the brakes as he peered at the house, a single light on, no cars in the driveway.
“I don’t think he’s home yet,” Reed said aloud, allowing the car to move past the house, not once looking back over his shoulder.
Snatching up the mic from the radio beneath the dash, Reed raised it to his face. “Bishop, you there?”
A long moment of fuzz passed before Bishop replied, “We’re here, ETA one minute and closing. Got a little turned around coming off the freeway.”
The last line was added as a bit of an apology, though Reed had no need or interest in hearing it.
“It appears Brandt is not yet home,” Reed said, watching in his rearview mirror, a pair of headlights appearing behind him he assumed to be his backup. “The captain’s trying to contact him and his aunt, so hopefully, he’ll get to them before they arrive.
“I’m going to pull up to the next cross street and let Billie out, see if she can pick up a scent. You guys stay back a block, and close the gate.”
“Roger that,” Bishop said, both sides signing off without another sound, Reed dropping the mic without bothering to hang it back on the radio.
At the next corner he made a left and inched forward until out of sight from Brandt’s house, easing his car to a stop and climbing out, Billie not bothering to wait for him before launching herself through the front seat and out onto the road.
Reed watched her for a moment, quivering with anticipation, before setting her loose.
“Search.”
Chapter Sixty-Two
Seated on the back porch, the Boat Man had a view past the corner of the house to the street out front and through the rear window into the kitchen. The single bulb left on downstairs was located above a breakfast nook in the corner of the space, an open floor plan allowing him to see into the living room and out the front windows as well.
Hunkered down in a chair, partially obscured by some low hanging branches, the Boat Man waited in silence. His black attire made him little more than a shadow on the dark porch.
On his very first scouting run the Boat Man had found that his final target still lived at home with his mother, a cruel irony in that he too had the opportunity to strip away the woman most important to his attacker. For weeks he had grappled with the best way to handle the situation before realizing it didn’t matter, the mother was rarely, if ever, home.
Instead, it appeared the final man on his list was little more than a glorified house sitter, a target made even easier because of the false sense of security a parent’s home provided.
Thoughts of where he was, what had brought him to such a state, passed through the Boat Man’s mind as a pair of lights appeared at the end of the street. He raised his body just an inch in his chair as he watched them roll by, not once slowing.
Lowering himself back into place, the faint glow of a second pair of headlights emerged, growing larger, coming into view at a much slower pace. Feeling his pulse climb, the Boat Man watched as the car crept to just barely moving as it turned into the driveway, a sliver of bright light shooting past him into the backyard.
His breath caught as he rose from his seat and crossed over to the rear of the house, pressing his back flat against it.
A moment later the headlights blinked out, darkness returning as a car door opened no more than 15 feet away. The sound of crinkling bags, the smell of fried food found their way to him soon after, followed by keys jangling as the target made his way to the door.
The Boat Man gave him three steps to make sure he was out in the open, waiting to emerge from the darkness, when a sound hit his ears he wasn’t expecting, something that stopped him, his heart pounding in his chest.
A woman’s voice.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Billie picked the scent up just off the corner, finding it in less than three minutes, the smell so fresh in her nose from the shirt Reed had given her, she practically snatched it off the breeze. The moment it hit her nostrils, her pace increased from a meander to a trot, head down, body poised, moving in a direct line down the sidewalk.
Falling in behind her, Reed had to jog to keep up, drawing his flashlight with one hand, his weapon with the other. Keeping the light by his side he clicked on the end plunger twice in a quick sequence, a fast and discrete signal to Iaconelli and Bishop down the street that Rigas was nearby.
A single flash of a light inside the car showed they had seen and understood, easing away from the curb as they pulled closer.
Bringing his hands together in front of him, Reed bent his knees into a shooter’s crouch, jogging forward. Beside him houses continued to tick by as his breath grew short, moisture forming on his skin.
In a place such as The Bottoms, a man like Rigas was forced into the shadows. Anybody giving him a second glance would know he didn’t belong there, his skin color, his demeanor, everything about him wrong for the neighborhood.
That wasn’t the case somewhere like Worthington, the street a near copy of his own, just a few miles away as the crow flies. Because of that he was able to move about unnoticed and unseen, just another resident out for an evening stroll.
Reed cursed under his breath as he kept going, Pierce’s house approaching on the right. Two feet in front of him Billie kept up her steady gait, her destination clear.
Chapter Sixty-Four
The Boat Man’s first assumption was the voice belonged to the mother, back from another service deployment, home from wherever they had sent her this time. The symmetry of the situation with what had befallen him was almost too much to ignore, he himself having had the most important woman in his life ripped away, now having the opportunity to do the same to the final person who had wronged him.
As perfect as it might have seemed though, as delicious as the moment would be for him, that was never his intention. His goal was not to become the monster they had been, waging wrath upon the innocent. The only point of what he had done, what he was doing, was for Janice.
Harming the man’s mother would be a disservice to his wife’s memory, and he couldn’t have that on his conscience.
Still, even if he refused to harm the woman, he could not let her presence stop him from what he needed to do. Inching forward to the corner of the house, he listened as the two approached. Both sounded annoyed as they spoke, the man closest to him, going for the door. Lingering behind was the woman, lecturing him the way only a parent could, her voice a bit more distant.
Pulling a deep lungful of air through his nose, the Boat Man tapped the sword against his thigh, the sheath was solid, firm against his leg. In that instant he knew what he must do, how he would approach the situation, how it all would end.
Without warning of any kind, without a yell or a scream or even a grunt from exertion, the Boat Man spun out from around the edge of the house, on them before either one even knew he was there.
Bypassing the man by the door, he charged for the woman, swinging the covered sword at her like a baseball bat, connecting just above her temple, lifting her small body and depositing with a sickening smack on the asphalt. Only then did he realize it wasn’t the mother, this woman wearing a uniform of a different kind.
A police uniform.
The Boat Man looked at her only a moment before turning to face the man before him. Gone were any pangs of concern ab
out having assaulted a cop, his list of transgressions already much too long to bother with such worries.
In that moment there was only his mission. Once that was complete, nothing else would matter.
With a flick of his sword he cast the scabbard aside. Stray bits of light from the neighborhood caught the blade as he twisted it an inch in either direction, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips.
“Remember me?”
Chapter Sixty-Five
Reed saw it long before Billie did, her head aimed down at the ground, still tracking the scent. She kept her attention aimed forward, moving past the front drive of Pierce’s house, following the route Rigas had taken.
From her vantage she couldn’t see what Reed did as he came into view of the house, still over 30 yards away, adrenaline surging through him as he saw Pierce standing just outside the door.
In front of him was Michael Rigas, his sword held at arm’s length, just a few feet separating the two.
Lying on the ground was a crumpled body, Reed guessing it was Brandt. He broke into a full sprint.
“Rigas!” he shouted as he ran, his voice sounding hoarse, fighting to get it out as he gulped down oxygen. “Michael Rigas! Put down the weapon and step away!”
The directive echoed out through the quiet neighborhood, a squeal of rubber coming a moment behind it, his backup hitting the gas to close the distance.
The combined sounds drew Pierce’s attention toward him, a paper sack still clutched in his hands, his jaw hanging open. Fear and confusion had collided to render him motionless, standing and watching as Reed pulled closer.
In front of him, Rigas paid no mind to the order from Reed, not so much as glancing in his direction. Instead he drew back the sword, gripping it in both hands, ready to bring it across in a wicked slash.
“Rigas!” Reed screamed again, stopping just 15 yards away. Planting his feet, he dropped the flashlight and brought his palm up, using it as a base.
There was no pause from Rigas, no attempt to stop his attack as Reed squeezed the trigger, a jolt of orange light sparking from the tip of his weapon. The gun bucked a tiny bit as the round spat out, slamming into the left side of his target.
The shot pitched Rigas forward, his own assault tailing to the side. From pure momentum the blade continued its path, cutting a flailing arc, slicing across Pierce’s thigh, splitting the flesh as if it weren’t even there.
Reed watched Pierce fold in half as he fell to his knees. A pained howl crossed his lips as he pressed his hands over the wound to staunch blood flowing from his leg.
“Rigas! Drop the weapon!” Reed screamed again, his voice pulling Billie from her tracking, his partner now standing by his side. Her growl could be heard low and persistent by his knee, letting him know she was close, ready to move.
Behind him a pair of headlights cast a glow over everything as Iaconelli swerved onto the driveway, grass and dirt spewing everywhere as he slammed the car to a stop, both men piling out.
Rigas stumbled to the side, looking at Pierce on the ground in front of him, at Reed standing to the side with his weapon raised, at the two detectives emerging from their car.
Reed could see the thought process playing out in front of him, of the longing the man had to finish the job. “Michael Rigas, we will shoot you if you do not put down the weapon!”
To his complete surprise, Rigas did something Reed never saw coming.
He turned and ran.
One moment he was standing before them, sword in hand, the next he was little more than a shadow, a man clad in black, disappearing into the backyard.
In that moment things seemed to slow down for Reed, his mind fighting to process the sensory overload of everything around him. He stood rooted in place, inventorying everything, before his training kicked in, his thoughts catching up with the situation.
“Hold!” he yelled, the word coming out elongated and angry.
At the sound of the command Billie shot away from him in a blur, just six long strides before she was gone, vanishing the same way as her target.
Following on her heels, Reed ran forward to Pierce, his hands still pressed over his thigh, blood soaking the ground, painting the entire left leg of his jeans black.
“How bad? How bad?” Reed yelled.
Bringing up the rear were Iaconelli and Bishop.
“Go, go!” Bishop yelled, sliding in beside Pierce.
“We got this, get after him!” Iaconelli yelled, the last sound Reed heard before he too ran around the corner into the darkened back yard.
Chapter Sixty-Six
Reed heard them long before he saw them, just two houses over, Rigas making it no further before Billie chased him down. Just as commanded, she had him pinned against a tree in the corner of a sprawling lot, his back against the trunk.
His left arm was limp against his ribcage, the black material of his shirt soaked with blood. In the right was the sword, the blade flashing as he swung it in wild swipes before him, using the weapon to keep Billie at bay.
Gun trained before him, Reed approached on a diagonal across the yard, his breath coming in short ragged bursts. With each swing of the sword in Billie’s direction he felt his heart spike, heard the labored cursing of Rigas, the gnashing of his partner’s teeth.
“Michael Rigas, put down the weapon right now,” Reed said, raising his voice enough to be heard, the tone non-negotiable.
Completely ignoring him, Rigas chucked another overheard swing at Billie, just narrowly missing her rear haunch as she ducked out of the way.
“That animal you are attacking is a police officer in the Columbus Police Department. If there is any way possible for you to be in even deeper shit than you are already, harming my partner is the way to do it.”
As he spoke, Reed inched his way toward them, closing the gap.
Light spilled out from the rear of the house behind Reed, the glow enough to show him for the first time the face of the man he’d been hunting.
His original assessment of the forensic drawing was correct, the curly hair an obvious wig. Otherwise, the recollection of Winters was spot-on, the resemblance obvious, even through the mask of pain and exhaustion Rigas wore.
“Michael Rigas, you will drop that weapon,” Reed said, stopping just five yards away from him, Billie continuing to pace back and forth by his feet. “And then I will place you under arrest for the murders of five men, for the attempted murder of a sixth, and for the assault of two police officers.”
He waited for any sign of a response, any signal that his words were being heard. Opposite him, Rigas seemed intent to watch Billie, the sword still held by his side.
“Michael Rigas,” Reed repeated.
“Michael Rigas is dead! He died two years ago!”
The words came out in one unending jumble, a plume of spittle spraying from his mouth, his eyes starting to glass over.
“I know all about what those men did,” Reed said.
“Do you? Do you?!” Rigas challenged. “Do you have any idea what it was like to have to watch as someone did that to your wife? To knock you out and carve you up? To put you to sleep for two months only to wake up and find out the only person in your world who mattered is gone?”
Tears fell from Rigas’s eyes as he stared back at Reed, pure hatred contorting his face.
“And I was close, too. All I needed was a few more minutes and my Janice would have been at peace.”
Already, Reed could sense where this was going. There was no chance Michael Rigas would ever allow himself to be arrested, would ever succumb to living in a prison.
Michael Rigas had no desire to live any more at all.
“You really believe that?” Reed asked, trying to buy himself any bit of time, anything that might touch whatever humanity still existed in the man across from him. “You think this is what Janice would want? You becoming a killer? Terrorizing the men who did this to her?”
For just the briefest moment Rigas paused, appearing to cons
ider the question, before the same mask of defiance fell back into place.
“I think Janice would tell me to make sure all six of them went straight to Hell so we never had to see them again.”
A throaty, guttural roar erupted from somewhere deep inside of him as the sword rose above his head. Pressing his backside into the tree trunk he rushed forward two quick steps, charging as if on the field of battle.
Billie reacted first, her body springing toward him, her first instinct to protect, to guard, to neutralize the threat.
Reed was just a moment behind her, the same internal mechanism working within him.
He would not lose another partner.
He would not let a madman with a sword harm her.
The first round Reed put into Rigas’s chest, the force of it jerking his shoulder to the side, his forward progress slowing. The next two hit side by side a moment later, a near-perfect triangle center mass, shredding his chest cavity.
A dribble of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth as the light faded from his eyes, the sword drifting from his hand, his body going slack.
He remained upright on uneven legs, providing no resistance at all as Billie slammed into him, toppling him over backward, not to move again.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
“He’s really a good kid, you know.”
Reed knew who the voice belonged to even without turning around. It sounded older, exhausted, but strong and clear.
“Yeah?” Reed asked, shifting his focus from Pierce lying in a hospital bed to the reflection of Eleanor Brandt approaching from behind.
“Yeah,” Brandt said, walking up beside him, coming to a stop just a few inches from his shoulder. A heavy gauze pad wrapped around her head. Already her right eye was swollen and puffy, the shadow of bruising beginning to color the entire side of her face.
“How you feeling?” Reed asked, glancing over at her.
On the opposite side of the glass Pierce lay with his left leg in a stirrup, a metal chain carrying all the weight. Padded gauze enveloped everything from his ankle to his hip, his eyes closed, tubes extending from his nostrils and both arms.
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