No Return

by Nolon King

  Rodney reached for his gun.

  The man hit him hard in the head and shoved the weapon in his face. “Anyone else wanna be a dead hero?”

  The world was frozen.

  Jessi couldn’t take her eyes off of Destinee’s glassy stare. She looked down at her hands, covering her stomach, blood soaking her shirt.

  The man dragged Jessi backwards. “Let’s go.”

  She wanted to scream, but who could help her as the man carried her off the bus?

  He threw her in the back of his van and slammed the doors.

  It was dark inside, and she blindly searched for a handle.

  Then movement behind her.

  Someone else is in the van!

  Hands pulled her back.

  She struggled, squirming, kicking out, finally able to scream, incoherent as it was.

  A gunshot outside the van …

  Are the police here to save me?

  Did they hear me?

  … preceded another three.

  Then a hand was covering her mouth, and in it, something cold and wet, smelling like strong chemicals. Maybe gas.

  A sweet scent coated her throat as she struggled to break free.

  And then her fight was all gone.

  The last thing Jessi felt was the van bouncing over something on the ground as it peeled into traffic.

  Prologue 2

  Jasper woke alone in a dark room, hands tied behind him, sitting in a chair with a bright light burning into his eyes.

  Everything was fuzzy — his vision and how he’d gotten here.

  Loud electronic music thrummed from somewhere nearby, tickling his bare feet.

  Every part of his body throbbed. He’d been battered, cut, and water boarded to within an inch of his life, a release from the pain only seconds away if only he would “just fucking tell them.”

  What these men wanted him to say, Jasper wasn’t sure. It was all so vague.

  Suddenly, he realized he wasn’t alone.

  Metal scraped against the concrete floor.

  Jasper looked to the right and saw his punisher. A tall, bald man with a Hispanic accent and a black tattoo under his eye, some symbol he did not recognize.

  He dragged his machete against the concrete. “You ready to tell us?”

  “Fuck you.”

  The man came at Jasper, swinging the machete, slicing through his neck.

  Hot blood jetted out of his arteries. Jasper went into shock.

  No!

  The man swung again, and again, until Jasper was no longer conscious. The last thing he sensed was his head leaving his body and falling onto the concrete.

  Then he woke with a scream.

  It was the second time in a week Jasper had the dream. But this was a vision, and that meant it would happen. He could feel it with the same certainty that had filled his marrow every time before.

  But he didn’t know who the man was, what he wanted to know, or when it would happen.

  And thus Jasper couldn’t prepare for it or do anything to protect himself.

  Friday, August 23

  Chapter 1 - Mallory Black

  Five days ago…

  “Why are you calling me?” Mal asked. “Is this some sort of game?”

  “No,” Jasper answered. “I’m calling because you need me.”

  “Why do I need you?”

  “So you can stop Dodd before it’s too late.”

  “What are you talking about? He’s in jail, awaiting trial.”

  “Something bad is going to happen.”

  “What?” This was really pissing her off.

  “He’s going to kill her.”

  “Who?”

  “Jessi Price.”

  “He’s in jail.”

  “He won’t be for long. And when he gets her, he’ll finish what he started. He wants you to watch him hurt then kill her. And then he’s going to do the same to you.”

  Mal wanted to yell at Jasper, accuse him of being a crackpot. He was obviously obsessed with her, Dodd, and the case. Maybe it had to do with ghosts of his former career. She knew plenty of ex-cops haunted by cases they never solved. Maybe this was exacerbated by his daughter’s suicide and the feelings of powerlessness it surely gave him.

  Regardless of his root obsession, it was absurd to believe Dodd could get out of prison, let alone grab Jessi again. And then somehow Mal, too.

  But she wasn’t about to argue.

  Not when she could placate him, maybe get him to come in. Then she could arrest him for the murder of Wes Richardson and figure out if he had anything to do with the disappearance of Calum Kozack and his girlfriend, Brianna — the parties rumored to be responsible for driving Jasper’s daughter to suicide.

  “Okay. Why don’t you come in and we can talk about it?”

  Quiet on the other line. Then a laugh. “Come on, detective. You know I was a cop, right?”

  “So, what do you want from me?”

  “Two options, way I see it. Kill him before he can get out. Before any of this happens. Or … you get someone to kill him.”

  “Is that where your offer of ‘help’ comes in? You planning a trip?”

  Another laugh, this one weary. “No. I already know you won’t do either of those things. I’m just warning you not to stop me the next time our paths cross. I will take him out.”

  Mal couldn’t imagine the sequence of events that could possibly put her in such a situation again — restrained to a bed as Dodd was about to rape that poor child.

  Or Jasper coming in to save the day, offering her another chance to slay the dragon.

  “Um, okay, sure. Why don’t we meet somewhere? We can talk about what you think might happen.”

  “You still don’t believe me. But you will. In the meantime, maybe get some protection on Jessi. As much as you can.”

  “I need more details. When is he getting out? How? Or taking Jessi?”

  “I … I don’t know the details, exactly. She only told me bits and pieces.”

  “She being your daughter?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “So, what’s the deal? Is she a psychic or something?”

  Not that Mal believed it, but he certainly seemed to.

  “I don’t want anything happening to her. So let’s not talk about her.”

  “I just need to know what I’m working with here.”

  “You know I know something, right? I reached out before any of this even started, before he took your daughter. I tried to warn you. And then I showed up when he took you.”

  “Maybe you’re working with him. Maybe you’re in some secret sex club.”

  A beat, then a sigh. “I’m sure you’ve looked into me enough to know that’s not the case.”

  “Well, I dunno, Mr. Parish, my intel says you died in a fire. And yet, here we are. You’ll forgive me if I’m not entirely certain what to trust.”

  “I haven’t lied to you yet. And I haven’t been wrong.”

  “You or your daughter?”

  “We haven’t been wrong.”

  “I need more information. Something I can work with. You don’t know how or when Dodd will get out of jail. You don’t know how or when he’ll take Jessi. What am I supposed to do? Tell my bosses this psychic I know says we need to watch out? Without specifics, no one is going to listen.”

  “As I said, A or B.”

  “You expect me to kill him?”

  “Or have someone do it for you. Surely you know someone who could get the job done.”

  “I’m a cop. I don’t go around calling hits. Forgive me for asking, but were you really an officer of the law?”

  “He needs to die.”

  “Like Wes?”

  Silence for a moment, then, “Are we going over that again?”

  “Okay, let’s skip that one for now. How about a couple of missing young adults? Names are Calum Kozack and Brianna Gilchrest. They just so happened to have both known your daughter. Did they need to die?”

 
; Silence.

  And then he was gone.

  Chapter 2 - Mallory Black

  Mal couldn’t go back to sleep after Jasper’s call.

  He was bat-shit for sure, but somehow the man knew things he shouldn’t.

  She went to work early and put in a few calls, first to check up on Dodd in the jail and make sure he was still behind bars. Then to Jessi’s mother, to make sure everything was fine there. Colleen was easily spooked, so Mal kept her call routine. The woman was nervous enough with the detail Mal had insisted stay on her and Jessi after Dodd made contact again.

  At around eleven in the morning, Mal’s lack of sleep, and perhaps a nasty bug, hit her hard.

  She turned to Mike in the next cubicle, who was following up on a robbery from the week before. “I’m feeling like shit. You need anything, or can I leave early?”

  “No problem. Go to the doctor. There’s a nasty bug going around.”

  “Yeah, no thanks. I need some rest. Maybe some whiskey.”

  “Suit yourself. Just don’t get me sick. Me and Gina are skydiving next weekend.”

  “You lose a bet?”

  “It’s one of Gina’s bucket list things, and in a moment of stupidity, I agreed to go with her.”

  “Yeah, that is pretty fucking stupid. Well, it was nice knowing you. Make sure you leave me your record collection.”

  “My music would be wasted on you, ABBA.”

  “Hey, ABBA’s the shit,” Mal said, revisiting a common joke. Mike was anti-seventies pop, heavily into classic rock and jazz — or anything he thought of as real music.

  “Yeah, I agree, ABBA is shit.”

  Mal grabbed her bag and got ready to go.

  She stopped by Sheriff Bell’s office to let her know she was leaving, but her boss was busy on the phone when Mal peeked in, probably talking to one of the council members trying to get on the right political side after the blowback of Councilman Conlan’s recent scandal.

  Conlan and the former sheriff, Claude Barry, had been strategizing ways to get Barry back into office in the coming November election. And Conlan had likely converted a few council members over to Barry’s side. Conlan had been exposed as the perverted filth he was, his body found in a seedy Cuban hotel room along with a bunch of underage sex videos on his phone. Mal wondered if Mr. Parish knew anything about it.

  The council had been forced to re-think their support for Barry, already saddled with the baggage of being a corrupt racist fuck. Mal hated the politics and wasn’t sure how Sheriff Bell managed to maneuver through all of the bullshit.

  Gloria looked up from her phone, saw Mal standing there, and waved.

  Mal headed home for some drink and some shuteye.

  Surely she’d feel better after a whiskey-soaked nap.

  Chapter 3 - Mallory Black

  Mal woke in her hotel room, where she’d been living for too long now, cell phone screaming on the nightstand.

  Groggy from the cold medicine — and alcohol — she fumbled a bit before her fingers finally closed around the phone. Through sleep-blurred vision, she saw Mike’s name and that it was only 11:05 PM.

  What time did I go to bed?

  “Yeah?”

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just need to sleep all weekend.”

  “Not talking about the flu. Talking about what’s on TV.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that. “What channel?”

  “Any of them. All of them?”

  Mal flipped on the local news and saw grainy footage of a woman outside a local dive bar. She was screaming at two men, then she punched one of them, followed by a kick to his ribs.

  No, it wasn’t a woman.

  It was her.

  “What the hell? When was this?”

  The video went to a grainy shot of another, though similar, incident. Then it cut to Cameron Ford, the blogger who ran a gossip website disguised as news, talking to an interviewer.

  “We held onto this a bit, even gave the sheriff an opportunity to handle it internally, but she refused. So we had to bring it to light.”

  Beneath him, the text read:

  CREEK COUNTY DETECTIVE OUT OF CONTROL?

  “And this isn’t an isolated incident. We have four different videos of Detective Mallory Black engaged in conduct unbecoming law enforcement.”

  “Four videos? What were the first ones?” Mal asked Mike.

  “Three fights, and one of you and some dude going at it in a car.”

  “What the fuck? This shit was from last year. Are they saying it’s recent?”

  “I don’t think Ford gave dates, just ‘the past year.’ I think they’re alluding to this happening while you were with the department. My guess is they’ve had a P.I. following you for a while, saving their hits for just before the election. Did Sheriff Bell come to you with any of this?”

  “No!”

  Mal seethed, staring at the troublemaking blogger, working against the public interest to manufacture propaganda for the former sheriff, who was doing whatever he could to win his seat back in November.

  Mallory thought Ford would’ve had the decency to slink away after his actions led to an angry lynch mob causing the tragic death of an innocent man not even a month ago. But clearly he had no soul. He kept spewing his bullshit into the camera.

  “What we have here is the tip of the iceberg from a long investigation into the Creek County Sheriff’s Department. More videos are coming into our Citizens for Responsible Law Enforcement website, regular people like you and me, fed up with the wild-west style of Sheriff Bell’s regime.”

  The news anchor, who didn’t ask who was funding this so-called “investigation” or argue that she might not have been one of those “regular people,” threw him a softball.

  “And you offered the sheriff a chance to take care of this. How did Sheriff Bell respond?”

  Ford laughed. “She’s ignored all of my emails and calls. Detective Mallory Black has personally threatened me on several occasions.”

  Mal turned off the TV in disgust. “He’s a fucking liar!”

  “Did you threaten him?”

  Her phone beeped. Mallory pulled it from her ear to see who was calling.

  Sheriff Bell.

  “Hold on. Gloria’s on the other line.” She clicked over. “I’m guessing you’re enjoying some TV?”

  “What is this?”

  “It’s nothing. They’re desperate, looking for shit on me to get to you. Stupid bar fights with assholes who deserved it. Yes, all of them. They either started shit with me or other women in the bar. Not a single one has tried to sue me.”

  “Well, that in itself is a small miracle, I suppose.”

  “Because they knew they were fucking wrong. And so is Cameron Ford. It’s a hit piece, and you know it.”

  “What else might they have?”

  Gloria wasn’t going to come out and acknowledge Mal’s struggle with pain killers, not on a phone where someone might be listening. Or recording.

  “They’ve got nothing else,” Mal assured her, before launching into a violent fit of coughing.

  She grabbed a bottle of water from her nightstand and drank. Her throat was still raw.

  Gloria was quiet for a long moment, probably trying to figure out how this would blow up on her Monday morning. The good news, if there was any, was that it happened on a Friday. Surprising since the weekend’s edge was when companies buried bad news in hopes that it’d vanish before Sunday dinner.

  But maybe that was a good move. Gloria probably wouldn’t respond with a press conference until Monday, meaning it’d push the bad news right back into next week’s headlines. This was Creek County, where bad news had a way of gaining fuel over time until it burned everyone in its path.

  Small Florida towns had a way of stoking the drama to keep it alive.

  “I need to put you on paid administrative leave,” Gloria said.

  “What? Over videos from a year ago, when I didn’
t even work for the department?”

  “Listen, Mal, I know you had a rough time after Ashley died. And you’re still not good. I have the utmost faith in you, I do. But appearances are everything, and we need to at least look like we’re investigating the matter. We’re under a microscope after the Burridge incident, like never before. Give me a week or so. Then we can say we looked into it, found nothing worthwhile, and clear your name.”

  “Burridge? The situation they created by instigating a witch hunt and a lynch mob against an innocent man? You’re playing defense, Sheriff. And that means you’re letting Barry dictate the game. You’re better than that. This is them trying to reposition the argument after their boy Conlan went down. Ignore it.”

  “I’m sorry, Mal. I suggest you talk with your union rep and lay low until this blows over.”

  Gloria hung up.

  Mal clicked back over to Mike and sighed. “Well, I’m on leave, partner.”

  “Damn it. Sorry. Anything I can do?”

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t go find that fucking blogger and kick his ass?”

  “Obviously, that’s a terrible idea.”

  She coughed again. “I couldn’t now if I wanted to. All right, I’m going to wallow in misery for a few days.”

  “Call me if you need me.”

  “Thanks, Mike.”

  Mal hung up and turned on the TV, flipping channels until she found someone discussing this bullshit. She felt violated as she watched grainy footage of her in a car on top of a man. Maybe, in the strictest sense of the word, it wasn’t an invasion of privacy — she had been in public — but it sure as hell felt like slut shaming, anyway.

  Hey, look at this woman having random sex in front of a seedy-ass bar!

  And she did feel shame.

  Not for the random sex. But for allowing herself to get so out of control, to be so self-destructive.

  How she could have been so blind to the darkness, missed how bad things had gotten? How bad they could still be had she not been pulled back onto the force to help save another little girl taken by the man who murdered her daughter.