by James Hunt
Cooper looked to Farnes’s bloody face, the pistol still gripped in her hand. “I remember.”
“All of those tasks I put you through, I felt a bit like Apollo. But then again, I am more than just a man.”
“But you haven’t always been that way,” Cooper said, trying to get under his skin.
The killer remained quiet for a while, and Cooper believed she’d managed to shake him, but the moment was short lived when he finally replied. “You’re right, Detective. It’s been a very long road to what I’ve become. I’m not sure if I would have the stamina to do it all over again if truth be told. It’s so tiresome making sure everything goes according to plan, and the larger the scope of your ambitions the more chances there are for things to go wrong. But I’ve made it this far… No reason to think I won’t see the end.”
“You won’t.” The stone-like foundation from which Cooper spoke the words didn’t feel like her own. But she hadn’t been herself, not for a long time now, even before Beth died, or her mother. Her job had transformed her into something beyond the woman who’d first donned the badge more than twenty years ago.
“Well, that’s up to you, Detective. Now, I know I haven’t quite given you the same number of labors that Heracles received, but I promise you this last one will be more sporting than the others, and far more interesting to you personally.”
“Fuck you.” Cooper spit the words through the phone. “No more labors. No more phone calls. No more notes. I’m going to find you, and when I do, I’m going to kill you.”
“Well, it’s going to be hard when you’re on the run, Detective.” A silence followed as Cooper processed the words. “Caught your attention, have I?” She heard the smile through the phone, and it was like she was staring into those dark, beady eyes face to face. “I know you think you don’t have anything left to lose, but that’s where you’re wrong.”
“I swear to god if you hurt my ni—”
“Calm yourself, Detective. You should know by now that I have no interest in hurting children. In fact, that’s the only pattern I’ve kept over the past thirty years. I’m only interested in adults, which means your nieces are off-limits. And you care nothing for that brother-in-law of yours, so he’s out of the picture. No, what I mean to take from you now is far more personal.”
Cooper took a few steps backward and into the moonlight that spilled through the windows. The captain’s blood shimmered on her hands, and the hue of the moon gave her a ghostly complexion. “What have you done?”
“It’s not what I’ve done but what people will think you’ve done.”
A gunshot rang out, and glass from one of the windows shattered on the far side of the factory. Cooper ducked, aiming her pistol toward the gunshot, and fired out of instinct. The shell casing clinked across the floor and rolled around her feet. She squinted into the darkness but saw nothing except the shadows of machinery.
“It’s no use trying to shoot back. I’m well out of range.”
Cooper checked herself for any wounds but found herself unscathed. “You’re getting sloppy.”
“No. I’m not.”
Farnes gurgled and gasped, coughing blood, and a crimson stain spread across his protruding stomach. Cooper rushed to Farnes’s side, applying pressure to the wound, dropping the pistol and phone. She felt the warm gush of liquid squish between her fingers as she tried to staunch the bleeding. Farnes spasmed, choking on his own blood and spit. His cheeks and face flushed a purplish red, and his eyes turned bloodshot. With his last bits of life his eyes grew wide, and then his head slowly tilted to the right, where it rested on the fat of his chest and shoulder, his body motionless.
“No.” Cooper lifted two fingers and pressed them against his neck. No pulse. She pumped his chest, feeling the crack of ribs as she tried to breathe life back into the bastard. “You fucking prick, no!” She pumped harder, but Farnes’s body only jiggled with each shove. “Shit!” She landed backward on her hands and ass, her fingers trailing curving paths of blood. Cooper eyed the phone she’d dropped and slowly reached for it, her fingertips transferring more blood to the device. She pressed it to her ear, hearing nothing but the killer’s light breathing. “Why?”
“I wanted to strip you of that final piece of armor that protected you from becoming someone like me.” He chuckled. “All those enemies you made at the police station, all of those people who hated you for turning on your partner, for breaking the bond of brotherhood that’s held so sacred in the police fraternity. They’ll hunt you down and kill you for this. No matter what the evidence says. They’ve been looking for a reason to kill you, just as you’ve been looking for a reason to kill me.”
Cooper looked at Farnes, his hands tied, his face beaten. She looked at the blood on her hands and the shell casing on the ground. There was enough evidence in here to force a trial, and if that were the case, then she’d never have the chance to stop the psychopath.
“The bullet that killed Farnes is one of the same kind you use in your service pistol. I know you understand by now that if this did go to trial, there wouldn’t be enough hard evidence to convict you, but you combine testimony from other officers, the recent tragedy you suffered with the death of your sister, and the unstable nature your peers have seen in you over the past few days, and it would be enough to put doubt into any jury’s mind.”
The wail of police sirens in the distance caught Cooper off guard, and she whipped around to the window, the blood on her hand creating a red print on the wall next to it.
“Your DNA is all over the scene, your car is at the captain’s house, and you have the motive to kill.”
“You called the police?”
“Of course. There’s been a murder.” He laughed, the same laugh she remembered from right after she’d flipped those switches on the box in his cabin basement. “But to be fair, their response time has been padded, as I called them ten minutes ago.”
Cooper bolted into action, holstering her pistol and flinging the duffle bag strap over her shoulder. She kicked the shell casing around her feet and kept the phone glued to her ear as she sprinted to the rear of the factory, the blues and reds of the police lights flashing through the windows. “What do you want?”
“The same thing you do: justice. I’m well aware of your investigation into Farnes and his brother, the former governor. Everyone knows they’re dirty, but no one has ever been able to prove it. That’s what I want from you, Detective. I want you to bring down our state’s most dangerous man.”
Cooper lowered her shoulder and smacked the back door open, spilling out into the gravel yard in the rear of the factory. The sirens grew louder, and above the wailing din she heard the bark of dogs. She hastened her sprint and weaved throughout the old, abandoned buildings.
“I could have done that with a badge.” She felt her legs cramp, and she was forced to slow her pace to a half sprint, half limp.
“But that’s why I took it away from you, Detective. You’ve hidden yourself behind that shield your entire life, using the law as a means of balance. And now that’s gone, and there is only one way for you to stop me now.”
Cooper ducked behind an old semi truck in one of the abandoned lots. The sweat from the run had slicked her hands and rewetted the dry blood on her palms, causing the phone to slip through her fingers. She felt the panic rising. The fear of the run stuck in her heart, she found that her hand went to the badge that no longer dangled around her neck.
“I’ll be in touch, Detective.”
The call ended, and Cooper dropped the phone in the dirt. The howl of dogs filled the night air along with the shouts of officers. She pushed herself up from the ground and continued the sprint through the factory complex, heading east as fast as she could. There was no way she’d be able to outrun them, not with the dogs tracking her.
Flashlight beams penetrated the alleyways and pavements Cooper sprinted across, doing her best to stay one step ahead of the officers in pursuit. “There she is!”
One of the beams caught her foot, and Cooper felt the rush of adrenaline pulse through her body as the growls grew ominously louder. She fought the urge to turn around and continued her beeline sprint east, knowing her destination was close.
More flashlights were added to the chase, and she felt sweat and blood drip from her hands. She balled them into fists, feeling the grime squish between her fingers. She cut a hard right, veering around the corner of another factory, and when she did she saw the river.
But the brief moment of hope was cut short by the sharp tear at her calf, and she smacked the pavement. The beast snarled savagely, and the pain from the bite traveled all the way up the left side of her body. She kicked the dog’s face with her right foot, and he released her, snapping viciously at the leg meant to harm him.
Blood dripped from the K-9’s fangs, and Cooper reached for the pistol at her side, the lights from the officers growing closer and the dog circling her, flinging saliva from its mouth with every snap of its jaws. She fired just to the dog’s left before it lunged once more, and the noise was enough to push the beast backward, but the gunshot triggered the officers to pull their weapons, thinking she was firing at them. Cooper hobbled toward the river, screams and barks echoing between the thunder of gunfire.
Bullets ricocheted off the pavement. Cooper’s calf felt like there was a knife stabbing her, but she pushed through the pain, forcing her gait into an open sprint. The water drew nearer, and the end of the concrete path was close.
“Stop! Freeze!” the officers shouted, but Cooper was too close. She planted her foot on the edge of the concrete, the river’s water ten feet below. More gunfire sounded, and nearly instantly she felt the splash of the rushing waters.
Cooper kicked and flailed her arms under water, disoriented in the icy river. She gasped for air upon breaching the water’s surface and saw that the current had already carried her downstream from the officers and dogs. The brief surge in adrenaline numbed the pain in her calf, but when she started kicking, attempting to swim to the other side of the river, the pain returned.
The sirens and gunshots had ended by the time she reached the other side of the riverbank, and Cooper half crawled, half stumbled out of the water, dragging the duffle bag whose strap was clung tight to her chest, and collapsed on land. She puked the bellyful of river water that she’d swallowed during her swim and flopped to her back.
The thump of helicopter blades in the air triggered the needed clarity to push herself from the riverbank mud and stumble up toward the row of houses that lined the river. She placed her hand over her heart, once again trying to clutch the badge that was no longer there. She wasn’t a cop anymore. She was a fugitive, wanted for murder. And the only way to enact her vengeance was to bring justice to a man that had been untouchable in this state for the past twenty years.
Chapter 5
A trail of muddy footprints stretched from the bank of the river all the way to the rundown neighborhood that ran along the east bank until they finally disappeared in the grass between two one-story homes. Cooper limped forward, keeping low under the windows as she passed. She needed to change, and quickly. Her wet clothes weren’t the most inconspicuous look for staying below the radar.
Clothes hung out to dry on a line flapped gently in the breeze, and Cooper checked the tags, looking for anything close to her size, then yanked items off the clothesline. She peeled off her clothes as she moved, dropping articles one after another as she maneuvered deeper into the neighborhood. She checked the sky, looking for the chopper’s spotlight.
Nothing put officers in a frenzy like the loss of one of their own. They would hunt her down with the scent of blood in their nostrils. The moment she found herself in someone’s crosshairs, she was dead. There wouldn’t be any hesitation in pulling the trigger. Not for her.
With her hair still sopping wet, she twisted it up in a bun, doing what she could to keep it from soaking the dry clothes she had stolen. Every few hundred feet she was forced to stop, the pain in her calf reaching a crescendo. The makeshift tourniquet she’d wrapped around the bite marks had stopped the bleeding, but it did little to ease the pain. Every flex of her foot was excruciating. Hospitals and doctors’ offices were off the table, but there was one person she could turn to—at least, she thought she could trust him. The wail of police sirens in the night combined with the pain in her leg overrode her skepticism, and she walked north, reciting Hart’s address in her mind.
***
Cooper had collapsed into a thicket of bushes just outside Hart’s home, which she had watched for the past hour. She thought the police would come directly to him, but so far there hadn’t been a single drive-by. If he hadn’t been told, then there was still a chance to tell him her side of the story, what had really happened. But would he even believe me? With her leg still bleeding and nowhere else to run, she didn’t have a choice.
Cooper crept toward the side door, past the two cars in the driveway, and knocked gently. She adjusted the duffle bag strap on her shoulder and made sure to tuck the revolver under her shirt and into her waistband. It was the only weapon she had left; her service pistol was somewhere at the bottom of the river, and while she hoped she wouldn’t need a gun, she wasn’t going to take any chances.
The door rattled from her pounding, and after a few seconds, the light above her flicked on and Hart peered through the crack in the door. “Cooper?” He opened it wider, and she saw he was dressed in a thin shirt and shorts with slippers on. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I don’t have a lot of time, but you should know that the moment I walk through this door I can’t guarantee they won’t hold you as an accomplice.”
Hart raised his eyebrows, his eyes scanning her until they stopped on her wounded calf. He kept the door open and stepped aside. “Then you should get in before one of my neighbors sees you.”
The side door led to the kitchen, and Cooper sat on the first chair she could reach at the table. Hart locked the door behind him and flicked on one of the lights, retrieving a glass that he filled from the tap. Cooper downed half the glass in one gulp, the water wetting her chapped lips and parched tongue.
“What happened?” Hart asked, taking a seat next to her at the table.
“Farnes is dead.” Cooper took another swig and drained the rest of the glass. “I found evidence linking him, Marks, and McKaffee together, and I thought that since Marks had been used by the killer, Farnes was involved somehow. But he wasn’t.”
“Christ, Cooper. You didn’t—”
“No. But it was made to look like I did.” Cooper pushed the glass away toward the center of the table. “I almost did it.” She dove into the memories of rage and anger that had filled her senses only a few hours ago. The white-hot flash of vengeance that had coursed through her veins like lightning. “I kidnapped him, tied him up, beat his face to a pulp.” She curled her fingers into fists. “The bastard deserved to die.” And I should have been the one to do it.
“Cooper.” Hart took hold of her hand, snapping her back to the moment. “You said the captain was involved with something, but it wasn’t the killer.”
Cooper pulled her hand away, nodding. “You know the drug house we raided that was linked to the killer’s bank account we traced? Farnes and some other officers have been involved in making sure those meth labs stay off police radar.”
“They’re turning a blind eye?” Hart asked.
Cooper reached for her calf, wincing. “And getting paid for it. Farnes and a few others make sure no one comes snooping around, and the drug dealers get to spread their product to a growing customer base.”
Hart reached down and examined Cooper’s calf. “We need to get that stitched up. My wife’s bag should be—”
“Jason?” A light flicked on, and Hart’s wife, her belly bursting with child, stepped barefoot into the kitchen. Her eyes immediately fell to the scene of her husband cradling Cooper’s leg, and the unintentional intimacy caused Cooper to pull h
er leg away.
“Katie,” Hart said, standing up, rushing to his wife’s side. “You should go back to bed.”
But she peered around Hart’s body, her eyes falling on Cooper. “You must be Adila.” She offered a smile, and the restless pregnant nights crinkled the lines next to her eyes. She had a fragile face and a pixie haircut. By any standards, she was beautiful—and young, barely out of college by the look of her. She took the seat Hart had occupied and examined the leg. “You’ll definitely need some stitches.”
“Katie, you don’t—”
“Whatever happened, I don’t need to know,” she said, turning around to Hart. “My nursing bag is in the bathroom. Go and grab it for me.” Without a word Hart nodded and disappeared, leaving the two of them in the kitchen.
Cooper caught herself staring at Katie’s stomach, and she looked away. “Sorry. I know I hated it when people stared.”
Katie smiled, rubbing her belly. “It’s all right. I didn’t know you had any. Hart never mentioned it.”
Cooper blushed, suddenly realizing she hadn’t spoken about her pregnancy to anyone in years. “I don’t. I’m sorry.” She kept her head down. “I don’t know why I mentioned it.”
“Oh,” Katie said, biting her lower lip. “I didn’t realize… I’m sorry for your loss.”
Cooper wasn’t sure if it was the word or the way she said it, but something about it struck a nerve, the same nerve the killer had plucked when he brought up the miscarriage. It was all just more of her past flooding back to punish her for a life she was never meant to live. But instead of burying it, she forced herself to hold it. “Thank you.” She smiled, looking back to Katie’s bump. “How far along are you?”
“Almost ten months,” Katie said, exhausted. “I can’t wait for this lady to join us.”