Kiss Her Goodbye (A Thriller)

by Robert Gregory Browne

  He tried to move, but couldn’t. The front end of the patrol car looked as if it had been crushed in the jaws of a trash compactor, the crumpled dash pinching his wounded leg. Blood pumped steadily from his thigh, seeping down to the seat beneath him. The entire limb was prickly numb, as if he’d slept on it for two days straight.

  Donovan had been wounded twice before in the line of duty. Once as a patrolman in Lakeview. He was chasing a suspect in a liquor-store robbery, a kid no more than sixteen years old, when the kid wheeled around, opened fire, and struck gold with his first shot.

  The bullet entered Donovan’s right pectoral and exited just below the armpit. It ripped the hell out of muscle and tissue—he still had the puckered pink scars to prove it—but it had somehow managed to miss any vital organs. The attending physician told Donovan he was lucky his right lung was still sucking air, but Donovan hadn’t felt all that lucky at the time.

  The second incident was more serious. Donovan had a detective’s shield by then, working Special Crimes, chasing down a serial rapist who had slit the throats of three of his latest victims, all thirteen-year-old girls.

  On a tip from victim number four, who had miraculously escaped unharmed, Donovan and his partner tracked the rapist to a run-down apartment building on the South Side. They cornered him in a dingy basement laundry room, where the suspect, a wild-eyed Neanderthal named Willy Sanchez, had dragged yet another thirteen-year-old.

  He was holding her at knife point.

  Donovan tried to reason with Sanchez. One hostage is the same as another, right? He set his .45 on a washer top and offered an exchange. “Come on, Willy, let her go. Take me instead.”

  Scared out of his wits, Sanchez at first balked, but finally agreed. Keeping his blade pressed against the terrified girl’s throat, he told Donovan to turn around and back slowly toward him. Donovan did as he was told, sharing a quick glance with his partner, who had his own .45 trained on Sanchez.

  The message was clear: as soon as the girl is free, take the shot.

  But as he drew closer to Sanchez, Donovan caught the wild man’s reflection in the window of a nearby dryer. Just a flicker of movement in those eyes told him that Sanchez wasn’t about to let the girl go. He’d sooner slice her throat and let her bleed all over the laundry room floor.

  Instinctively, Donovan quickened his step, brought his elbow up fast, and rammed it into the center of Sanchez’s startled face, shattering his nose. Sanchez screamed, reaching for the damage as Donovan grabbed the girl’s arm and spun her halfway across the room.

  But Sanchez wasn’t down. With a surge of pure rage, he lunged at Donovan, knocking him sideways against a jumbo dryer. The knife arced upward, sank deep into Donovan’s side, and punctured his left kidney.

  As Donovan slid to the musty cement floor, his partner pumped six bullets into Sanchez’s back and head, sending him to the great boneyard beyond in five seconds flat.

  The last thing Donovan remembered was the smell of stale dryer sheets and the hysterical sobs of a frightened little girl.

  A team of surgeons managed to save both Donovan and his kidney, but the memory of that night still sent a shiver through him. Any pain he suffered was always compared to the heat of that blade piercing flesh.

  THANKS TO THE numbness, the fire in Donovan’s thigh was almost nonexistent now, but he’d gladly suffer a little pain in exchange for mobility. He watched helplessly as the big guy in the ski mask reached the overturned news van. Gunderson and another guy—Bobby Nemo from the looks of him—climbed out carrying a pregnant woman in a Kevlar vest and bloodstained sundress.

  Sara Reed Gunderson. The girl next door with a heart of stone.

  They laid her on the sidewalk and Gunderson knelt over her, almost reverently it seemed, and felt for a pulse. He obviously wasn’t getting one. Head drooping, he closed his eyes a moment, then abruptly stood up and turned in Donovan’s direction.

  Even from this distance, Donovan could see the rage in those eyes. A greater rage than even Willy Sanchez had been able to muster, broken nose and all. Donovan didn’t need a course in advanced logic to know what was coming. He tugged at his leg, trying desperately to pull it free, but the damn thing was wedged in tight.

  Gunderson’s hand dropped to a holster strapped at his thigh and pulled out a Beretta nine-millimeter.

  As Donovan fumbled for his own weapon, he heard a sound—a sound that came from deep within Gunderson’s gut and erupted into a roar of pain and rage that only a truly wounded soul could articulate. There were no words, just that sound, as Gunderson pointed the Beretta at him and squeezed the trigger.

  Donovan dove sideways, flattening against the seat as the shot rang out. His windshield shattered, glass showering down on him.

  Two more shots followed, punching leather directly above his head. Donovan raised his Glock over the dash and returned fire, but it was a fruitless gesture. The bullets ricocheted harmlessly.

  The sirens were closer now, finally part of the real world and close enough to be a threat. The distant thup-thup of a helicopter accompanied them.

  Bobby Nemo shouted, “We gotta get outta here, man!” but another shot rang out and metal clanged nearby.

  A weightier voice said, “He’s right, Alex. We’ll deal with this motherfucker later.”

  Apparently Gunderson was incapable of speech. He made a strangled sound that seemed to indicate a reluctance to leave, but after a moment he was silent.

  And a moment later, hurried footsteps carried them away.

  Donovan raised his head and peered over the dash, his gaze immediately drawn to Sara, sprawled on the sidewalk. He knew what she was capable of, but that didn’t equate with what he saw before him.

  She was somebody’s daughter. Someone’s sister, wife, grandchild, and, until now, a mother-to-be. Donovan found himself thinking of his own little girl, wondering what his life would be like if he ever lost her. Maybe he was an A Number One shitheel, maybe he hadn’t paid as much attention to her as he should, but he still loved her and couldn’t imagine a world without her.

  He stared at Sara and almost couldn’t blame Gunderson for his rage, for wanting him dead. And in his heart and mind, he knew this wasn’t over.

  Not by a long shot.

  Alexander Gunderson had a new cause.

  Part Two

  EFFECT

  8

  JESSIE DONOVAN COULD count on one hand the things she hated in this world, and among them was the alarm clock in her father’s bedroom.

  At 7 a.m. on a chilly Thursday, that clock started buzzing, just loud enough to pierce the armor of her bedroom wall and pull her out of what had, until then, been a sound, dreamless sleep.

  The alarm wasn’t meant for her father. No, chances were pretty good he’d been up since dawn. He’d showered, shaved, and hit the street by 6:45, true as always to his workaholic lifestyle.

  But because Jessie refused to set her own alarm and had consistently demonstrated a failure to rise on time, Daddy dear had taken it upon himself to make sure she didn’t sleep in. She had school to think about. And grades. And a tardy student does not bring home the kind of grades that make the future bright.

  What made matters worse was that Jessie couldn’t simply roll over and smack the alarm silent. Instead, she had to force herself out of bed and stagger into her father’s room.

  By then, she was awake. Groaning, but awake. Irritated, but awake. And she knew that somewhere out there in the working world, her sadistic jerk of an old man was smiling.

  A SHOWER PUT her in a better mood. She liked the water needle-hard and hot enough to redden the skin. She shampooed, shaved her legs, and by 7:35 was wrapped in a towel and ready for breakfast.

  As always, her father had left a bowl, a spoon, and a box of Cocoa Puffs on his breakfast nook counter. She had been staying with him for nearly two weeks now and the routine had never varied. This time, however, she was surprised to find a small, neatly wrapped box sitting next to her cereal bowl. />
  Not a birthday gift, that’s for sure. Number fifteen had come and gone months ago. So what the heck was this all about?

  A note card was taped to the box. She ripped it free and unfolded it, the neat, economical strokes of her father’s pen staring up at her:

  TRY NOT TO LOSE THIS ONE

  She could hear him saying it in that no-nonsense tone of his. A tone of authoritative disapproval he’d cultivated after too many years on the job. She knew immediately what was in the box and felt like throwing it across the room.

  But what would that accomplish?

  Truth was, Jessie was too impatient for her own good. At least when it came to her father. It was obvious he loved her, and okay, okay, maybe she loved him back. But cut her a little slack. This was all new to her. She’d barely seen the guy in years. After half a lifetime of awkward, two-minute phone calls on birthdays and holidays, they had only recently reestablished contact.

  She supposed part of that could be blamed on distance. Before moving back to the city, she and Mom and Roger had been trapped in Gooberville for what seemed like an eternity. But her father hadn’t exactly strained himself to keep in touch.

  Until now, that is.

  Something had happened, he’d told her. Something that had made him realize what a fool he’d been for allowing their relationship to become so fragmented. What that something was remained a mystery, but at the time he said it, his words had been like a melody to Jessie, a sad but reassuring song about love and loss and hope.

  Unfortunately, the second verse didn’t quite live up to the hype.

  Shortly after he contacted her, Jessie had agreed to meet with him for lunch. Hot dogs and malts at Superdawg, one of the family’s favorite haunts when she was a kid. But the meeting turned out to be just as awkward as those two-minute phone calls. And what talking they did do felt like an interrogation—Daddy dear obsessed with her love life, wanting to know who she was dating and how he treated her.

  Jessie didn’t hide her irritation.

  “Who I hang out with,” she finally told him, “is none of your fucking business.”

  She’d thrown in the F-bomb for shock effect, showing him that she was no longer his darling little girl. And it worked. That moment, in fact, was the sour note that knocked the entire melody off-key.

  By the time he dropped her off at home, their conversation had been reduced to monosyllabic, caveman grunts. And after he left, she went directly upstairs and cried into her pillow for three straight hours.

  But Jessie wasn’t a quitter.

  Despite the disaster, she couldn’t escape the feeling of longing she had whenever she thought of her father. She wanted to hate him, but couldn’t. Something about the smell of him reminded her of her childhood, of a time when all was good and clean and safe in the world.

  He smelled like home. And Jessie wanted more than anything to be back beneath his protective cover.

  So she called him, and they met again.

  And a third time.

  Better, but not perfect.

  But maybe perfect was a pipe dream. Because no matter how hard she tried, Jessie just couldn’t rid herself of the resentment she felt. A resentment that seemed to underscore their entire relationship.

  Yet here she was now. Standing in his apartment on a chilly Thursday morning.

  Mom and Roger had gone away for the month, and despite her mother’s skepticism, and her own serious misgivings, Jessie had accepted her father’s invitation to spend the time with him.

  It was almost as if he wanted to prove himself. To prove to her that this newfound desire for contact was more than just a passing fad, or half a decade’s worth of guilt piling up on him.

  The least she could do was give him that chance.

  So instead of throwing the box across the room, she ran her thumb up under the spot where the edges of the wrapping paper met and tore it open. Just as she suspected, inside was a single key, attached to a tiny, ceramic figurine of Lisa Simpson.

  The key chain was a nice touch. Jessie had been a Simpsons fan for as long as she could remember. When she was small, she and her dad had watched the show together every Sunday night, and she still made an effort to catch the nightly reruns.

  The key fit the front door to his apartment. He’d given her a copy her first day there, but she had lost it at school a few days ago and had been forced to wait in the lobby until he came home that evening.

  He was really pissed at first, lashing out at her with a sarcastic remark about teenagers and their lack of responsibility, but one thing she had learned in these two weeks was that he was the kind of guy who couldn’t stay mad for long.

  Not at her, at least.

  And while that small fact didn’t exactly have her jumping for joy, it was, she supposed, a step in the right direction.

  SHE MISSED HER bus and had to catch a cab to school. Not something she liked to do, but she was a big girl. It was either that or be late again, and late was not an option.

  “Bellanova Prep,” she told the driver, and gave him the directions.

  The driver was a bald-headed perv who acted as if the only time he’d ever seen a girl in a school uniform was in some cheesy porn flick. All the way there he kept glancing at her in his rearview mirror.

  Jessie shifted uncomfortably on the backseat and folded her arms across her chest, watching the morning whip by.

  Vendors washed down sidewalks in front of flower shops and bakeries and delicatessens that promised mile-high pastrami sandwiches; harried moms dropped their squealing kids off at concrete nursery schools; men in gray suits with gray faces marched dutifully toward gray office buildings. It seemed to Jessie that people were always in such a hurry to get somewhere, but did any of them really know where they were going?

  She sure didn’t. Not yet, anyway.

  After a while, some guy in a funky old Jeep pulled up alongside the cab and blocked her view. Not that she minded. He was pretty cute. Way too old for her, close to thirty probably, but he looked familiar and she was sure she’d seen him on TV. Maybe one of the entertainment channels. She couldn’t be sure.

  The ponytail was a bit much—who the heck wears ponytails these days?—but the body wasn’t bad. Taut, muscular, looking like he’d spent a lot of time outdoors chopping wood or something. He had nice gray eyes and an easy smile, which he flashed in her direction as he sped up and turned a corner.

  Bellanova Prep was less than a mile away. Jessie had half a mind to tell the driver to turn around and “follow that Jeep,” but that would be a little reckless, now, wouldn’t it?

  Jessie was not a reckless girl.

  Moments later, as she paid the driver and got out of the cab, she could swear she saw the Jeep again, out of the corner of her eye. She glanced up the street, but saw no sign of it—if it had even been there in the first place.

  As she hurried up the steps and fell in with the crowd of kids piling in through the school’s cathedral-like entrance, she found herself thinking about that Jeep, and about sixth-period math and a guy named Matt who sat across the aisle from her.

  She wondered how he would look with a ponytail.

  9

  THE HOT ITEM on drive-time talk radio was the transfer of Sara Reed Gunderson to yet another critical-care facility. This was the third such transfer in little over a month. The first came ten days after she was brought to Franklin Memorial, her baby lost, her pulse nearly nonexistent, and her brain showing little, if any, activity.

  In other words, Sara was about as dead as you can get without actually crossing over to the other side. The doctors should have pulled the plug that first day, but Sara’s parents wouldn’t hear of it. They still held out hope for their little girl.

  Sara’s father, the CEO of a top-flight investment brokerage, used his considerable influence and deep pockets to call in medical experts from around the world. They’d take his money and study her charts and quietly shake their heads.

  Sara’s mother appealed to God, b
ut her prayers had apparently fallen on deaf ears. Sara had been in a coma for a month and a half now, and the prognosis wasn’t even remotely hopeful.

  Despite Sara’s crimes, and despite her leftist leanings, she was something of a cause célèbre to the right-wing fanatics who dominated the talk-radio waves. Whenever a new transfer was announced, discussions about government agencies out of control were renewed with venomous vigor. Most of that venom was reserved for the ATF.

  Remember Waco, they’d cry.

  The children of Walter O’Brien, and the wife of fellow bank guard Samuel R. Kingman, pointed fingers at no one. They believed Sara Reed Gunderson was an icy-hearted bitch who got exactly the punishment God intended: an eternity in hell.

  Their only hope was that her husband would soon join her.

  Unfortunately, no one expected that hope to come to fruition anytime soon. Despite the best efforts of the Chicago Police Department, the FBI, and the ATF, neither Alexander Gunderson nor his two surviving comrades could be found.

  The FBI, plagued by the more pressing concerns of Middle East terrorist cells, speculated that Gunderson and crew had fled the country, possibly to Cuba. The police commissioner, countering criticism that the CPD was asleep at the wheel, insisted they had headed for the mountains of Wyoming or Iowa, seeking refuge among the local militias.

  Neither scenario made sense to Jack Donovan. And as the publicity surrounding the Northland First & Trust robbery sank deeper and deeper into the back pages of the daily newspapers, he refused to give up. He maintained that Alexander Gunderson hadn’t left at all, but was holed up somewhere within the city limits.

  Waiting. Watching. Planning.

  Gunderson would never, Donovan insisted, leave his beloved Sara behind.