Kindred Spirits

by Jean Marie Bauhaus

  “It’s fine. It’s not your fault.”

  “What about Jim?”

  “I left him up at the building site. Joe and Ron both tackled him and made him drop his gun, so I ran.” She let out a bitter laugh. “Didn’t get too far, though.”

  Derek had to unclench his jaw to speak as he got the belt in position. “Okay. This is going to hurt. Hold onto me and don’t be afraid to squeeze as hard as you need to.”

  “Okay.” She gripped his arms.

  “You ready?”

  She nodded, and Derek cinched the belt as tightly as he could around her thigh. Chris let out a scream as her fingers dug into his biceps. Then she relaxed. “Ow,” she said weakly.

  “I feel a hole in the back of your jeans, too. Pretty sure the bullet went clean through.” He stripped off his button-down and folded it into a makeshift bandage, then tied it tightly around the wound. “I think this is as good a field dressing as I can do.”

  “Beats bleeding out alone in a ditch.” At least she hadn’t lost her sense of humor.

  “You two done yet?”

  “Yeah,” said Derek. “We’re done.”

  “All right, then. Get moving.”

  Derek handed the ghost box to Chris. Cradling her in his arms as gently as he could, he stood up and carried her toward the building.

  Toward both their deaths, if Hanson got his way.

  “I can’t find her!”

  Ron returned to the building site to find Jim Lansing on his hands and knees, breathing hard. Joe stood between him and his gun. He seemed to have things under control. Ron had gone to search for Chris after hearing a gunshot ring out below. She’d gone in the direction Chris had run, but there’d been no sign of her. She’d scoured the rest of the construction site with no luck.

  “Joe, what if she—”

  “She’s fine. She’s alive, at any rate. If she wasn’t, she’d definitely be able to hear you calling for her.”

  “But what if she’s hurt?” She knew she sounded frantic but didn’t care. “What if she’s bleeding?”

  Before Joe could answer, Jim lunged for the gun. But Joe was faster. He kicked it out of the old man’s reach. “Stop it!” Lansing wailed. “I need that!”

  “I’ve got this,” said Joe. “You should keep looking. The others ought to be here soon. They can help.”

  Ron let out a frustrated laugh. “How do we tell them Chris needs help without Chris?”

  The old man lunged and again, Joe kicked the gun, and Lansing cried out in frustration. “That’s a bridge we’ll have to cross when we come to it.”

  “Dad?” a voice called from down the hill. A figure appeared on the path, moving closer. “Dad, is that you?”

  Lansing sat back on his knees and stared in horror at the figure. “No,” he muttered, shaking his head and hiding his face in his hands. “No, no, no!” Again, he lunged for the gun. Distracted by the newcomer, Joe wasn’t quick enough that time. The old man grabbed the pistol and held it to his temple.

  “Dad, no!” The figure moved fast and tackled the old man. He was a big guy. Somehow familiar. It took a moment for Ron to place him as some kind of famous football player whose name she couldn’t remember. He wrestled his father to the ground and pried the gun out of his grip. He tucked it into the back of his jeans as he got to his feet. “Dad, what’s going on? What is all this?”

  He reached down to help the old man up, but Lansing just lay there and covered his face with his hands. “No! Don’t look at me.”

  “Dad—” The son crouched down and pried the old man’s hands away from his face. “Where’s the girl? Did you…” He looked like finishing the question might make him sick.

  “No!” Lansing shook his head. “She ran. She took off that way.” He waved his hand to indicate the direction his son had just come from.

  “I didn’t see anybody. Dad, swear to me you didn’t hurt her.”

  “I didn’t!” Lansing pushed himself to his elbows and muttered, “I didn’t get the chance.”

  His son just stared at him a moment, his hand over his mouth, shaking his head. Then he took a deep breath and grabbed his father under his armpits and hauled him to his feet. He turned him around and lowered his head to meet his father’s gaze. The old man refused to look at him.

  “I have to ask you something. Did…” He squeezed his eyes shut and blew out a breath, then tried again. “Did you have Jimmy killed?”

  Lansing shook his head, and his son let out a relieved sigh. But then he said, “They were only supposed to hurt him.”

  His son’s hands fell away from his shoulders and dropped to his sides. He backed away from his father, shaking his head slowly.

  Just then, a scream came from below. Ron reached out and gripped Joe’s wrist. “Chris—”

  “Go,” he told her. “I think we’re all good here.”

  Without a second glance at the father and son, Ron flew in the direction of the scream.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  All things considered, it felt good to be held in Derek’s arms. As they moved up the hill, she did her best to ignore the throb in her leg and the icy fist of fear that gripped her chest and focus on that instead. After all, it might be the last good thing she ever got to experience.

  “Chris!” She heard Ron before she saw her. She fumbled with the ghost box and switched it off before Ron got close enough for it to pick her up. The less this dirty cop knew about their invisible helpers, the better.

  Ron reached them and fell in to step beside Derek. “Oh, thank God. I thought—who cares what I thought? You’re alive!”

  Chris merely nodded, then jerked her chin behind them. Ron took the hint and followed the motion toward Detective Hanson and the gun he kept pointed at Derek’s back. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

  “He’s the one.” Jimmy told her from the other side of Derek. “The guy who shot me. Ron, we can’t let him hurt them.”

  “No.” She looked meaningfully at Chris. “We won’t.” She glanced back up the hill, then turned to Jimmy. “I’ve got to go warn Joe. Remember everything I taught you. Watch out for them.”

  “I will.”

  Ron vanished. Chris blew out a deep sigh and rested her head on Derek’s shoulder, placing her lips next to his ear. His arms tightened around her, but he went still and remained silent as she whispered everything that just happened. When she finished, she raised her head and met his gaze. He nodded. Then he kissed her on the forehead and kept walking.

  The incline grew steeper as they got closer to the construction site. Derek’s breath grew labored. He grunted and shifted her in his arms. “You can put me down if you need to,” she said.

  “You really think you can walk on that leg?”

  The way it throbbed, that seemed unlikely. “Maybe with help.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got you.” It was hard to make out his expression in the moonlight, but something in his voice touched her down deep, warming the places that had gone ice-cold with fear. “We’re going to get out of this,” he murmured.

  “Quiet,” Hanson barked behind them.

  “You be quiet,” Jimmy muttered, unheard by anyone else. “Big jerk.” Chris looked over and caught his eye, and he glanced back at Hanson. “You know, I’m a lot stronger now than I was. I could probably tackle him, knock the gun away.”

  Chris glanced back at Hanson and considered it. He wasn’t some old man. He was a trained police officer, and he looked strong. She couldn’t run, and the likelihood that Derek would leave her there seemed minuscule at best. Remembering how well it had gone back at the house when Joe had tried such a thing with Jim Lansing, Chris decided it was a bad idea. “No,” she told Jimmy.

  “No?” Hanson put a hand on Derek’s shoulder and turned the both of them to face him. “You got something to say?”

  Chris looked down at the gun. He held it level with his waist, but with his height, it was aimed at Derek’s chest. She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’
t very well tell him she’d been speaking to someone else.

  “Leave her alone,” said Derek. “She’s tired and in pain.”

  “Well, we’ll fix that soon enough.” He waved them on with the gun. “Walk.”

  “I do have something to say, actually,” Chris said over Derek’s shoulder once they resumed the climb. “Why did you become a cop?”

  The outline of those big shoulders shrugged in the darkness. “My dad was a cop.”

  “Was he a dirty cop?”

  “Yeah, actually.” He said it matter-of-factly, without a trace of shame. “He helped cover it up after I killed the kid. Later, after I got busted selling drugs, he shipped me off to the army and got my record expunged. After I got out, it was his idea for me to join the force. Seeing how well being a cop worked for him, all the…advantages it gave him and our family, I figured, why not? Anyway, it wasn’t like he gave me much choice.”

  He fell silent. After a moment he asked, “Anything else you want to know?”

  “Yeah. Were you born a sociopath or did your father make you that way?”

  He didn’t answer. Then, just as Chris decided he’d taken the question as rhetorical, he said, “Let’s just say it was never a good idea to go against my father.”

  “I have a question,” said Derek.

  “Shoot.”

  He stopped walking and turned to face Hanson. “Why did you kill Jimmy? Try as I might, I can’t imagine Jim Lansing actually hired you to do that.”

  “Well, you’re right about that. The old man just wanted me to rough him up, leave him too messed up to play ball. But then here came this skinny little kid and aimed a gun at me.” Again, those shoulders shrugged. “I had to show you both who was in charge.”

  “But why kill him? You’d gotten the gun away from me. Jimmy was too hurt to be a threat—”

  “He wouldn’t stay down!” Hanson took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was calmer. “He had to stay down. Getting caught wasn’t an option.”

  While Hanson spoke, Chris watched Jimmy. His fists tightened and his face twisted into a mask of fury. He reminded her of an angry tiger, ready to pounce. And pounce he did. His fist flew out and connected with Hanson’s stomach, hard enough to make the big man double over and grunt in pain. But not hard enough to loosen his grip on the gun, or throw off his aim.

  Holding his stomach, Hanson stayed bent over a moment, looking around as though trying to figure out what had hit him. He straightened back up and pointed the gun at Derek’s face. “Enough talking. Start walking.”

  Derek’s breathing became heavier as they crested the hill. His grip on Chris started slipping. “I can make it from here,” she told him. He didn’t look convinced, but he set her down and she held onto him for support.

  Everything was fine until she tried shifting her full weight to her wounded leg. Pain shot out in every direction from her gunshot wound so fast and so intensely that it nearly made her black out. She cried out and slumped against Derek as Ron materialized by her side.

  “What are you doing? Don’t walk on it!”

  Chris shot her sister a look to let her know that she’d figured that out, thanks. Just then, another voice called out to Derek. Another large man approached them. Chris could only make out his silhouette in the darkness. “You found her,” he said. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s been shot,” Derek replied.

  “Shot?” He looked behind him. Chris followed his gaze to her abductor, who sat on the ground at the base of the building foundation with his head in his hands. “Dad, you shot her?”

  “I didn’t shoot anybody.” Lansing raised his head to take them all in. “You!” He pointed past them at Hanson as he climbed to his feet. “What are you doing here, Hanson?”

  The newcomer, who Chris figured must be the much-discussed Steve, turned back toward them. He seemed to notice for the first time that Hanson held them all at gunpoint. “Whoa.” He held up his hands. “What’s going on here, Detective?”

  “I’m cleaning up your old man’s mess, that’s what,” said Hanson.

  The senior Lansing hurried over to them, waving a finger at Hanson. “You leave my son out of this! He has nothing to do with any of this! It’s just between you and me!”

  “Not anymore,” said Hanson. “I gotta say, I’m not thrilled about having such a prominent citizen mixed up in this. The TV reporter was bad enough. But I can’t really see a way around it at this point.”

  “Around what?” asked Steve.

  “Murdering you,” said Derek. “Murdering all of us. Like he murdered Jimmy.”

  “Jimmy?” Steve’s voice cracked on the name, and he looked back at the detective. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on. None of us really know anything. Let’s talk about this. I’m sure we can come to a reasonable solution.” As he spoke, he kept one hand stretched toward Hanson. The other hand, Chris noticed, crept slowly around his back.

  Jimmy noticed, too. “Aw, Steve,” he muttered, “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  They weren’t the only ones who saw. “Freeze!” Hanson shouted suddenly as he stepped back from the group and aimed the gun at Steve’s head. “Hands where I can see them.”

  Steve sighed and held up both of his hands.

  “Turn around.”

  Steve complied. When he did, Hanson stepped forward and yanked a pistol out of the former jock’s waistband and holstered it at his waist. Then he patted Steve down.

  “Get your hands off of him!” Jim Lansing shouted.

  “Shut up!” Hanson shouted back. “This is your own fault, old man. If you’d left everything to me like I told you, none of us would be here right now.” He shoved Steve toward his father, hard enough to make him stumble. Chris figured there weren’t too many people around who were strong enough to do that to the ex-linebacker.

  Hanson stayed far enough back from the rest of them to give himself plenty of time to aim and shoot if anyone decided to try anything. He waved the gun toward the plank propped against the foundation. “Everybody up. All of you. Let’s go.”

  Steve helped his father, who cussed a blue streak at Hanson as he climbed the plank. Steve followed him, then lay down on the edge of the concrete and motioned for Derek to bring Chris over.

  She glanced around for the others as Derek scooped her back into his arms. Ron and Jimmy had both disappeared, and she’d seen no sign of Joe since returning to the building site.

  As Derek hoisted her up to Steve’s waiting arms, she looked up and saw three faces peering over the ledge of a platform several stories above them. But she quickly forgot them as Steve hauled her up and her wounded leg banged into the concrete. She let out a yell and curled up on the foundation floor, biting down on the urge to whimper.

  “I’m sorry,” Steve told her. “I was trying to be careful.”

  “It’s fine,” she said through gritted teeth once she came back to her senses. Derek had just reached the top of the plank and hurried over to her.

  “Are you okay?” She looked at him but said nothing. “Right,” he said. “I guess ‘okay’ is a relative term under the circumstances.”

  They looked back at Hanson, who was making his way up the plank. For such a big guy, he was surprisingly graceful, having no trouble balancing as the board bowed and bounced under his considerable weight.

  He nearly reached the top when something flew down from above and crashed on the ground next to the plank, just missing him. A stack of boards had somehow gotten knocked off one of the upper stories and landed in a pile of splinters. It startled Hanson enough to knock him off balance, but he quickly recovered and scrambled onto the foundation.

  “Guess I should have worn my hard hat,” he said, looking back at the fallen boards. Chris closed her eyes and lamented her ghostly guardians’ terrible aim.

  Derek whispered softly in her ear as he helped her to her feet. “Was that…”

  She nodded. “For all the good it did,” she muttered.

  Ro
n reappeared next to them. “Sorry,” she said, her expression pained. “The guys are getting tired. It’s throwing off their aim.”

  “What about you?” Chris asked, her voice low.

  “Don’t worry about me.” She glanced over at Hanson. “Don’t worry, period. We’ll figure this out.” She disappeared again. Chris couldn’t say she felt reassured.

  Still keeping a safe distance, Hanson moved toward the interior of the building. He took his eyes off the group long enough to look around, apparently to get his bearings. “All right.” He waved everybody on. “This way.”

  He directed them toward the center of the foundation, where a large sheet of plywood lay in the middle of the floor. “You.” He pointed the gun at Steve. “Move that over there.”

  “You won’t get away with this, Hanson,” Jim Lansing said as his son did as he was told.

  “I have so far. What, you think you’ll be the first bodies I’ve dumped here? You won’t have any identifying features left by the time anyone even thinks to look here—if anyone ever does.”

  “Here” was a deep hole cut into the foundation floor, some kind of well or reservoir possibly meant to feed an indoor fountain. Chris thought of Scottie Tucker, who was almost certainly killed by this man, and wondered if his remains awaited them at the bottom.

  Steve hauled the plywood away from the hole before rejoining his father. “Thanks,” Hanson told him cordially. “For what it’s worth, it pains me to do this to you. I’ve always been a big fan.”

  “Gee, I’m touched.”

  “Well,” Hanson went on, ignoring Steve’s sarcasm, “might as well get this over with. Everyone line up over here, on your knees.”

  Derek made a scoffing noise. “You want to shoot us, do it over here where we’ll bleed on the concrete. We’re not going to help you hide the evidence.”

  “Is that so?” Hanson strode over to them, his gaze locked on Derek’s. He seized Chris by her injured arm. She let out a scream mixed with pain, anger, and fear as he yanked her against him and pressed the gun to her temple. “How about now?”

  Derek stared helplessly at them. “Why are you doing this?”