MYSTERY THRILLER DOUBLE PLAY BOX SET (Two full-length novels)

by Osborne, Jon

  Blankenship frowned and checked his watch. Nearly eleven o’clock already. Way too late for any woman to be walking the streets alone, much less one who looked like Wexler. Besides, they’d walked over here together, so that was the same way they’d walk back. Better safe than sorry, and that was what his mama had taught him to do. “I’ll go with you,” he said, rising to his feet and sliding his shoulders into his faded brown leather bomber’s jacket. Wexler was a pretty tough cookie – an amateur MMA fighter in her spare time, for Christ’s sake – but Blankenship’s deep-seated sense of chivalry wouldn’t allow him to allow her to walk alone, especially at night. Way too many weirdoes out there looking for a quick, non-consensual sexual tryst.

  Wexler rose to her feet and put on her own coat, nodding down at his barely touched drink that was still sitting on the table next to the Jack Yuntz files and belching out impressive amounts of steam. “What about your coffee?” she asked. “You just bought it, and the damn things cost six bucks apiece. No use in wasting your money on my account.”

  Blankenship waved a hand in the air and pretended not to see his drink. “What coffee’s that, Claire?”

  Wexler narrowed her bright green eyes at him suspiciously. Somehow, it only made her look even prettier. Blankenship shook his head; pretty sure that she’d make a burlap sack look good. Good thing he was such a faithful guy. If not… “Is this some sort of knight-in-shining-armor thing, Blankenship?” Wexler snapped. “Because if it is then you can just shove it right up your male-chauvinist ass. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.” She pulled back the flap of her coat to display the shiny black Glock tucked into a leather holster at her side. “Besides, I’ve got a goddamn gun.”

  Blankenship wrinkled up his face and tried his best to look offended by the accusation, at the same time reaching down to scoop the files off the table. “No, this isn’t some kind of knight-in-shining-armor thing, Claire,” he said, straightening back up and pursing his own lips in an effort to underscore the validity of the statement. “Don’t be silly. I just feel like taking a walk, that’s all.”

  Wexler held his stare. Not quite as intense as Madison’s, but not all that far off from it, either. He wondered briefly if someone had pulled all the girls out of class at some point during their childhoods and taught them to stare like that. “Well, it had better not be. Because in case you hadn’t heard yet, the 1950s were a long time ago. This isn’t an episode of Father Knows Best.”

  Blankenship took a step back and held up his hands with his palms facing her. “Whoa, take it easy there, sister. Don’t go having a conniption on me. And don’t go pulling that ageism crap on me, either. Like I said, I just need some fresh air.” Blankenship checked his watch again. “We’ve been sitting here for hours now, for Christ’s sake. I need the break. So quit being such a pain in my ass about it.”

  Wexler gave him one last meaningful look before finally dropping her sparkling emerald stare and heading for the front door to the coffee shop. “Well, OK, then,” she said, brushing past his right shoulder. “You can come with me if you really want to. Just know that I’m perfectly capable of going by myself.”

  Blankenship caught the light scent of her shampoo as she passed. Something flowery. In front of him, Wexler pulled back her coat sleeve and glanced down at her left wrist to check her own watch. “We’ll be back here in half an hour, anyway, so your next coffee’s on me.”

  Blankenship followed the intoxicating scent of Wexler’s shampoo out of the coffee shop and onto the street. On their way over to the field office on Lakeshore Avenue, he filled in the time by asking her about her MMA experiences. Pretty odd pastime for a woman, to say the least, and it had piqued his curiosity. “Ever fight a guy before?” he asked.

  Wexler glanced over at him. “You mean, like, officially?”

  “Yeah.”

  Wexler shook her head. ‘No, of course not. Don’t be stupid. I don’t even think they allow that kind of thing.”

  Five minutes later, they’d finally reached the field office on Lakeshore Avenue, eschewing any further conversation along the way. Flashing their IDs at the security guard who was working the front desk downstairs, they made their way across the pristine lobby and stepped into the elevator on the northeast side of the lobby before riding the car up to the fourth floor, the frigid air from outside still dancing merrily on their frozen cheeks.

  When the doors to the elevator slid open with a high-pitched ding! several moments later, Blankenship stepped out first, momentarily forgetting what his mama had taught him about always letting the so-called “weaker sex” go first. The next thing he knew, his world turned completely upside-down, his black dress shoes sliding out from beneath him in some sort of slippery substance that was coating the marble-tiled floor.

  A split-second later he landed hard on his back, jarring the breath clean out his lungs. Wheezing painfully, he turned his head to the left and found himself staring directly into Bill Krugman’s unblinking brown eyes.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” Blankenship screamed, trying to scramble to his feet but slipping in the blood. “Jesus fucking Christ!” His pulse crashed wildly in his wrists. Acrid stomach bile flooded into his mouth and sizzled on his taste buds. He grimaced against the foul taste. Behind him, Wexler was already on the phone to the security desk downstairs.

  “Dead body on fourth floor,” she said, breathing hard. The Glock at her side had already been drawn from its leather holster. “Call 911 and then get up here just as soon as you can to provide us with some backup.”

  Wexler snapped shut her phone and shoved it deep into the front pocket of her jeans. She gave Blankenship a concerned look and helped him to his feet with her free hand. “Are you OK?”

  Blankenship wiped his shaking palms against the thighs of his dress pants, staining them with Krugman’s blood. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m fine. Just a little bit shaken up.”

  Wexler nodded. “Good, then come on. I’ll lead the way.”

  Still too stunned to protest, Blankenship drew his own gun from its holster and followed her closely down the hall to the first door on their left: his office. Reaching it, Wexler took one quick step back and lunged forward again before kicking it open hard. “Freeze, motherfucker!” she shouted, shoving in her Glock first to lead the way.

  No movement came from inside the space. Just then, though, the loud rumble of a motorcycle roaring to life sounded from the parking lot four stories below. Both Blankenship and Wexler ran over to the window and looked down. A figure dressed entirely in black revved the motorcycle’s engine once, then lifted both his middle fingers in their direction.

  Blankenship gritted his teeth angrily. Jack Yuntz. In one fluid motion, he jerked up his right arm and shot through the window, raining down hundreds of shards of broken glass onto the parking lot below, scattering them across the pavement like a bag of spilled diamonds falling from a fleeing thief’s shaking hand. A thick chunk of concrete kicked up directly in front of the motorcycle’s front tire, causing the motorcyclist to flinch hard.

  Close, but not close enough.

  Blankenship adjusted his arm an inch to the left and pulled back on the Glock’s trigger again. But this time his weapon jammed. “Goddamn it,” he snarled.

  He turned to Wexler, wondering what in the hell she was doing. He twisted up his face in annoyance. The deer-in-the-headlights look on her pretty face made it clear to him that she didn’t have the faintest clue of what she should do. “Well, Wexler,” he snapped, “don’t just stand there, for Christ’s sake. Shoot the motherfucker already. My fucking gun jammed.”

  Directly to his right, Wexler finally fired off her own Glock. The sharp report from her weapon rang loudly in Blankenship’s ears, rattling his brain. Unlike his recent near-miss, however, the misdirected bullet from her gun shattered a car window fifty feet to the left of its intended target, setting off the vehicle’s alarm system.

  Instinctually, Blankenship grabbed Wexler’s Glock from her hands and p
ointed it out the window as the offended Mercedes-Benz that she’d just hit continued to honk obnoxiously. But by then it was already too late. The figure dressed in black kicked the motorcycle into gear and pulled back on the gas with his right fist before roaring out of the parking lot in an ear-bending screech of tires.

  Hitting Lakeshore Avenue in a matter of seconds, the motorcycle wobbled crazily for a moment – nearly spilling over onto the icy pavement – before its driver finally regained control and righted the ship.

  Blankenship winced and lowered Wexler’s gun to his side as the mocking wah-wah-wah of the motorcycle’s powerful engine echoed in his ears like the sound of maniacal laughter.

  And then, with one last shocking burst of speed and the fluttering of a black trench coat, the figure was simply gone.

  CHAPTER 49

  The cold wind roared in Jack’s face as he zipped out of the FBI field office parking lot on the recently purchased motorcycle, freezing his cheeks solid. His heartbeat hammered painfully against his ribcage for several terrifying moments when he nearly dumped the motorcycle on Lakeshore Avenue, but then he somehow managed to right the ship again. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he muttered to himself, not sure he’d ever felt this way before. He’d just been shot at, for Christ’s sake. Quite a change of pace from what he’d grown accustomed to, with him doing all the shooting.

  Speeding down Lakeshore Avenue as the loud wail of sirens began to echo loudly in the distance, Jack pointed the motorcycle toward I-90, knowing good and goddamn well that he needed a straight stretch of road to really pick up speed and throw off any possible pursuers.

  He nearly threw up his own heart as he went from the overload of adrenalin coursing through his veins. His extremities tingled. His mouth filled up with an acrid taste. Grimacing, he swallowed it back. Still, he felt proud of himself for what he’d just done. And why the hell not? He’d had a great plan for killing Bill Krugman – sliding the sleeping pill-laced syringe through the plastic bottle of vodka and covering up the small hole with a piece of Scotch tape before somehow convincing the Director to have a drink while Jack ostensibly used the bathroom prior to their face-to-face meeting, but great playwrights knew when to edit their scripts. And less was more sometimes.

  When he’d gotten into Cleveland half an hour earlier, instead of heading directly for his hotel and setting things up for the final showdown with the venerable Director, Jack hadn’t been able to resist the urge to swing by the field office to conduct a little reconnaissance work. And that was when his plan had suddenly changed. Risky, of course, but he hadn’t minded. He liked the risk, after all. Always had. Not to mention the fact that smoking was an absolutely filthy habit.

  And – as his mother had so often and so wisely told him and his little sister while they’d been growing up on the mean streets of New York City – cigarettes would kill you.

  Finally reaching the on-ramp to I-90 several minutes later, Jack pulled back on the throttle some more and lost himself in the steady stream of traffic that was flowing down the busy travel corridor. Then he smiled. The execution of Crawford Bell had gone perfectly, much better than even he ever would have dare dreamed. One down, one to go. Now he just needed to take care of Dana Whitestone and he could finally wrap up this decidedly deadly little game of modified chess once and for all.

  His way, this time.

  Jack widened his smile until his cheeks began to ache.

  Hell, he thought as the freezing wind whipped hard through his short brown hair and turned the exposed skin on his face into an unfeeling sheet of frozen flesh, I guess that I might as well take out Jeremy Brown again, too, while I’m at it.

  PART X

  “The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy.” – John Galsworthy, English playwright and novelist who died in 1933.

  CHAPTER 50

  Bruce Blankenship felt tired. And cranky as hell.

  He blinked hard against the bright rays of sunshine that were streaming in through the windshield of his 4-Runner and stabbing the center of his brain like sharp yellow knives, at the same time resisting the overpowering urge to yawn. He and Wexler had been up all night after the shit-show that had begun with Jack Yuntz slicing Bill Krugman’s throat right there in their own goddamn field office. Still, sleep wasn’t an option for him right now. Wouldn’t be for the foreseeable future, as a matter of fact. And until he could track down the murdering little punk who’d killed his boss in cold blood – catching the old man unawares from behind, of course – Blankenship didn’t think he’d willingly go to sleep again. If sleep wanted him so goddamn badly, it would just have to take him by force.

  “He sliced the janitor’s throat and stole his clothes while the man was outside having a smoke, and in the process stole the janitor’s ID,” Claire Wexler said from the passenger seat beside him, lifting her right hand and studying her short fingernails casually. “Pretty shitty security setup, if you ask me. Anyway, I’m fucking starving and I’m fucking exhausted, too. I need some breakfast and then I need about twelve hours of uninterrupted shut-eye. You hear me, Blankenship? Are you taking me to my car? Because it’s just on the other side of the building, you know. I could have walked there, even by myself. Is this one of your knight-in-shining-armor things again?”

  Blankenship resisted the urge to shout at his de facto partner, missing Dana Whitestone more than ever. Wexler was obviously cranky herself, but that was just too fucking bad for her. “No, Claire,” he said evenly. “I’m not taking you to your car.”

  “Well, then, where are you taking me?”

  Blankenship didn’t bother to look at her. “Somewhere that I should have taken you a long time ago.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Just wait. You’ll see.”

  Ten minutes later, Blankenship angled his 4-Runner into the Cleveland Police Department’s headquarters on Ontario Street. Wexler lifted her eyebrows on her forehead as he pulled his vehicle into an empty space and killed the engine. “What are we doing here?” she asked.

  Blankenship undid his seatbelt and opened his door. “Just follow me,” he said. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  To his great surprise, Wexler did as she’d been instructed without asking any more annoying questions. Exiting the passenger side of the vehicle, she followed closely at Blankenship’s heels while he led her across the icy pavement and toward a large building fifty yards away from the main structure. Pulling open a heavy outer door a moment later, Blankenship flashed his ID at a man seated behind the front desk there and received a nod in return. The loud sound of gunshots rang out all around them.

  “What the hell are we doing at a shooting range?” Wexler asked, still bringing up the rear. “Seriously, Blankenship, is this really necessary?”

  Blankenship finally turned around to face her. He lifted his own eyebrows high on his forehead but didn’t say a word. He didn’t think he needed to.

  Wexler shook her head in irritation at the unspoken insinuation. “Fine, Quick-Draw McGraw. Whatever you want. You’re the boss, I guess.”

  Forty-five seconds later, Blankenship and Wexler were in a two-person booth with headphones cupped over their ears and yellow-tinted Wiley X shooting glasses on their faces to protect their eyes. Seventy yards away, a paper target in the shape of a male torso hung from a metal clip on a motorized pulley system. Blankenship swept an arm in front of his waist. “Ladies first,” he said, speaking loudly enough for her to hear him through her hearing protection. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  Wexler gave him a stormy look and lifted her Glock, thankfully not at him. Setting her lips into a tight line, she pulled back on the trigger. The first shot didn’t even hit the target.

  Blankenship pushed her arms down gently. “Here,” he said. “Wait a minute. Let me show you.”

  Lifting his own weapon, he put three quick shots within an inch or two of the target’s heart before lowering his weapon to his side again and turning back to her. “You’ve go
t to think of your weapon as an extension of your own arm,” he said. “You’re jerking back on the trigger. Squeeze it instead, firmly but gently.”

  Wexler nodded and lifted her Glock again, pulling back on the trigger once more. This bullet nipped the very bottom of the left-hand side of the target this time. Closer, but not anywhere near close enough for what they needed.

  Blankenship stopped her again and shook his head in disbelief, pulling off the right side of his headphones to facilitate the exchange. “How the hell did you ever pass your shooting quals at the Academy?” he asked. “No offense, Wexler, but you shoot like shit.”

  His new partner glared daggers at him and pulled off the left half of her own hearing protection. “Fuck you, Blankenship,” she said. “Just fuck you very much. For your information, I’m good at other things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like choking the shit out of you if you keep running your smart mouth to me,” she spat. Fire shot through her sparkling green eyes with the harsh words.

  Blankenship glared back at her. His patience with the young agent had run its course now. So – woman or not – if she wanted to talk to him like a man, he’d treat her like a man. No time for chivalry when people were still dying out there. “Well, unless you plan on stopping Jack Yuntz by choking him out with one of your fancy MMA moves, I suggest that you come here every day until you learn how to shoot, Wexler. This isn’t an MMA match, you know. That fucking prick killed our boss right in our own goddamn backyard.”

  Wexler softened her glare, and Blankenship felt glad to see it. Angry as he felt right now, he also felt much too tired to fight with her. And however hard it might be for them to accomplish at the moment, they needed to save whatever vitriol they could muster for Jack Yuntz. “Yeah, I know that he killed our boss in our own backyard,” Wexler said, taking the sharp edge out of her tone. “I was there, you know. But are we absolutely sure it was him. Are we absolutely sure it was Jack Yuntz?”