Dark Vengeance

by R. T. Wolfe

  He barely made two more strides before another came at him from the side. It was Melbourne's recent lay. That was too much. Eric White actually swung first. A high block sent White's arm upward and gave Duncan the in to send three quick jabs with his right followed by a punch with his left that started from Duncan's hip, went through his shoulder and through his knuckles.

  But then more arms were around him. He twisted, head butted and kicked. "There's someone in there! You don't understand!" He sensed people were talking to him, but everything was gray. His only focus was escape and the front door that was now a large, angry hole of flames.

  Then, all he saw was pavement. He recognized the voice of the man on his back. Andy. His arms wrenched behind him and the legs that circled his own were a contrast to the pleading voice.

  "Duncan, please. It's me, brother. Let them do their job."

  Every muscle in Duncan's body surrendered. Andy didn't loosen his grip. The pain from the twist in his arm, the feel of pavement shoved in his face... it was welcomed. "Do something, Andy. They won't let me in. I failed again."

  As Andy slowly let go, Duncan saw two sets of legs standing on either side of him wearing thick firefighter's pants.

  He sat in a fetal position and pressed the palms of his hands to his ears, trying to drown out the sounds. The sounds of a little boy screaming as he witnessed his aunt lying, unmoving in a cold Black Creek; the sound of Brie pleading with Melbourne as she held a gun to the little boy's temple; the sound of his commander... of Nickie as she asked him what time it was.

  He buried his face in his hands and heard the yells coming from deep inside him.

  * * *

  It took hours, as Duncan knew it would. He sat against a tree and watched and smelled and felt. Andy stayed with him. Neither spoke a word.

  Through his haze of sensory overload, Duncan looked up to see the chief staring down at him.

  Andy spoke first. "We're very sorry about your eye, chief. However, White swung first, sir. You should know that."

  He waved away the disclaimer. "I came to tell you the house was empty."

  He said it in such a flat tone that Duncan didn't understand. He found his voice and asked, "What do you mean?"

  "I mean there was no one in the house. We found no signs of life or death in your house."

  Turning his head, Duncan looked at Andy, then back to McKinney. "I, I don't understand. I had just left the house. She was still sleeping. Her car is..." He gestured to the beater as realization came to him.

  McKinney ran his hand over his buzzed, dirty crop of gray hair before he shrugged and repeated, "The house was empty."

  Duncan picked up his cell and dialed her number again. No answer. He called Dave.

  "Lieutenant Nolan."

  "Dave... Dave, it's Duncan."

  "I'm so sorry, Duncan. I can't believe it."

  "The house was... was empty."

  He looked up to the chief.

  "I'll call you back," he lied. Duncan stood. His autopilot took him toward his car. He didn't give a second look at what was left of the house. It meant nothing.

  He scrolled through the contacts on his phone as he walked with purpose as never before.

  "Whoa, brother. You're not driving." He felt Andy's hand on his shoulder.

  Turning, Duncan found his brother both determined and wincing.

  "I'm not going to hit you," Duncan said without recognizing his own voice.

  "That's good, but you're not driving either. Give me your keys."

  He dug in his pocket as he nodded. Yes, you drive. He found the number he was looking for and called Gloria. Without scaring her, he checked, just to be sure. She hadn't heard from her either.

  "Wait." As Andy put the car in gear, Duncan slapped a hand on his chest. "She's alive."

  The look on Andy's face was that of worry. "Yes. That's the good news."

  Duncan opened his door. "Get out. We're looking around."

  He didn't know what he was looking for, but he knew he couldn't tell anyone. Not the detective on duty, not the chief. Everything was a mess.

  There was a myriad of tire tracks. The fire engine had sunk a piece of his drive the size of small car. They walked around the house, lying to anyone who tried to stop them. "McKinney told us to keep a distance," he said to an old timer. He didn't look like he bought it, but also probably knew this wasn't an accident. Footprints littered every piece of dirt or grass, tire tracks every inch of the front half of the property.

  He had been avoiding her car. The pain seared through him as he forced himself to look at it, then had an idea. It was evidence now, he was sure of it. Turning to Andy, he pleaded, "They have their eyes on me."

  Andy sighed. "Yes."

  "I need her gun. It's under the driver's side seat." He knew what he was asking of him as he handed him the spare key. To taint a crime scene and steal a police officer's gun in the most gun restrictive state in the nation. "Please, Andy. I'll distract them."

  It was easy. Just try to climb the stairs of the house again.

  The chief came at him. "That's close enough, Duncan." He looked tired and dirty. Too bad.

  And that was it. Andy pressed Nickie's car door shut and they were out.

  "Come on." Duncan took his brother by the arm. "We're getting your laptop and your tablet."

  He convinced Andy there wasn't time to drive to the Binghamton internet café.

  "I get it, I get it," Andy said, "but I'm not going down with you if you get caught. I've got a wife and baby now."

  Distracted, Duncan waved away the risk. "Hurry up. I want to hit downtown before we log on. I've got a complaint about a haircut."

  * * *

  Duncan's Aston Martin was too ostentatious. He parked it in the town Starbuck's lot and they walked. Andy stopped on the other side of the street, one store down from the barbershop.

  They agreed texting was the most inconspicuous. Impatiently, Duncan waited. He tried not to let his mind take him to where Nickie might be or what might have happened to her. He wanted to try her cell again, but he'd already left a half dozen messages.

  His phone buzzed: '2 guys. Both old. Open in a ½ hour at 10.'

  He answered as he walked, 'Can u cover the front?'

  From down the street, Duncan could see Andy lift his head, then shake it before he texted back, 'whatever'.

  The alley was mostly quiet. A young twenty-something juggled keys and opened the shop next door. Other than a few parked cars, Duncan was good to go. He was prepared to pop the lock but it was open.

  He remembered the back hall and almost made it to the front before he was spotted. Duncan's elbow was locked, his arm was straight out in front of him and his hand held Nickie's 9mm police issue. "Go ahead and try for the Glock behind the counter."

  The two men seemed to know enough not to move anything but their eyes. Those moved from the break room to each other.

  "Slowly, to the back room." Duncan walked toward them. He spotted Andy in his peripheral vision.

  "Hands up," he ordered. "Higher dammit or I'll shoot you in the leg. I'm having a bad fucking day."

  He made them sit at their break table. "You need five chairs for the two of you? Tell me where they have her."

  The one who had cut Duncan's hair kept his poker face, but his aging buddy looked to the side and up. Creating a lie.

  Duncan moved around and glanced behind the door. "I have nothing to lose. Tell me or I start shooting."

  "I think he means it, Phil."

  "Shut up, Dewey."

  "What if he can put them away?"

  "Shut the fuck up, Dewey," Phil said through his teeth, never taking his eyes from the 9mm.

  Duncan wasn't bluffing. "I can keep what I know silent if you give me what I need."

  "The pit boss isn't going to—"

  "On second thought," Phil interrupted. "Go ahead and shoot him."

  The pit boss. That was all Duncan needed.

  Chapter 30

  As
he slowly backed up, Duncan reminded them, "I'm sitting on this information, boys. You pick up that phone and I squeal. Slippery Jimbo and all." Duncan was making shit up now. All hunches. Good hunches, but his Nickie would never approve. He had to find her.

  * * *

  As Duncan shut the passenger door, he said two words, "Pit Boss."

  Andy knew what it meant. Pit Boss was one of the personal email addresses they'd been watching. Most of the talk going to and from had been in code. Making a pizza delivery or Pit Boss: the band is in town. Nothing incriminating.

  Duncan and Andy sat in the downtown internet café with two tablets and two laptops linked into a number of both the fire department and the police station's email addresses and phones. The hours ticked by painfully. Patience was something Duncan held in high esteem. This was killing him.

  They moved to the frigging Starbucks. Andy tried to reason with him but he wasn't having it. It had been too long. He needed answers and didn't have anyone he could call. All he knew to do was wait for someone to send something he could use.

  Some people have a day job. Stick it again if you don't like the noise.

  Duncan put the screen front and center. It wasn't from Pit Boss. He traced who the message went to. It was an instant message. Finding the conversation wasn't the problem.

  Fine. Time?

  Pit boss says 8. Behind get lucky's.

  A drip of sweat fell into Duncan's eyes. He sensed the sting but couldn't get his eyes off the screen. Get Lucky's? He resisted slamming his hand on the table. There was no place anywhere near Northridge called Get Lucky's.

  "Duncan." It was Andy.

  He shook his head and turned to look at him. Andy was looking at the messages, too. "You need to eat something. We have four hours. We'll start driving. We'll figure it out."

  Northridge wasn't that big of a town, but because of its proximity to Seneca Lake, it had its share of pubs, restaurants and hotels. Which one would be Get Lucky's?

  They gravitated toward the skankier parts of town. Andy had finally let him behind the wheel.

  Were they looking for an unmarked? A car with fire inspector written on the side? They needed more and it was nearly eight o'clock. They should have waited at their computers longer. He had been too impatient. He felt her slipping through his fingers. Then, he thought of the night club where he'd found Slippery Jimbo.

  It wasn't named Get Lucky's, but the rooms in back, the girls.

  He did the quietest u-turn he could and drove down the street. Turning into the alley behind Tommy and Angie's Tavern his heart skipped several beats. As his breath raced to overdrive, he said to Andy, "Take the car. Go to Dave. Tell him everything."

  "You think I'm going to leave you?"

  "I want you to go for help, brother. For me. Please."

  Duncan slipped on the jacket he used when he needed big pockets and stuffed Nickie's gun in the back of his pants. This was it. It had to be.

  * * *

  Duncan looked at his watch. Eight fifteen. He tried to keep a clear head. A smart head. The alley was quiet. Creeping along, he kept to the walls and behind dumpsters.

  When he came to what he believed was the tavern, he found a box to stand on and looked in the windows. Nothing. They were curtained.

  The door opened and Duncan pressed himself to the bricks, barely behind a thick drain spout. The men didn't look around, but he didn't need them to. He'd suspected the fire chief. McKinney had once dated his aunt. He hung on to her hand a little too long at the bakery when he called her beautiful. He was too casual at the fire scene. Didn't press charges for the swing Duncan took at him, but Tanner?

  Captain Tanner was the fucking captain. Nickie trusted him. It took everything Duncan had in him not to shoot them both in the back.

  But when they opened the doors to the box truck, he heard her. Her voice was muffled, but it was her. He could recognize her voice if she was under water.

  Duncan didn't care if he was seen, he ran. The truck started, the lights went on and it started moving. He ran faster, jumping on the fender. He hung onto the outside lock as it rocked down the alley.

  Nickie was alive. She was alive and conscious. Hope. His body and his mind spun in acute relief and in needed vengeance. Hanging on, he dug in his pocket for his vile of powder explosives.

  He heard them talking, laughing. Then, he heard her screaming. It was muffled, but it was a scream and it made him see red, blurry red.

  The vile slipped out of his hand and shattered behind them as the truck took a corner. No. He dialed his phone and stuffed it in his back pocket. Then, he took out Nickie's gun. He didn't wait for the truck to slow down. He needed to get in there.

  Aiming at the lock, he held on higher to the locking bar and squeezed the trigger. The kick rocked him back. As the one door flew open, his back hit the other. He let himself swing around with gun drawn.

  He aimed the gun at Tanner's face as McKinney held a gun to Nickie's.

  Silence.

  Tanner took a long drag on the cigarette that dangled from his lips before he said in his baritone voice, "Shut the door, Duncan. Stay a while. You don't look surprised to see me. I never could figure out how no one suspected a case that went unsolved for twenty-nine years." His laugh was deep and strangely without feeling.

  Nickie was lying on her back with her hands handcuffed and tied above her head. Her feet were tied, each to a corner of a twin-sized bed with metal head and footboards. Her eyes were open as wide as saucers and her eyes were moving from McKinney to Tanner to him.

  Nothing had been clearer before. The sights, the sounds. What he needed to do.

  Without telling it to, his arm lowered and Duncan slowly set her gun on the floor next to him. Nickie kicked and growled through the duct tape pressed over her mouth.

  Tanner looked as casual as if he were in his plush office. He glanced down at Nickie as she bucked so hard the entire truck shook. "I heard about this side of you, Nick."

  Nickie's eyes burned, her neck was sore from the times they'd injected her, her mind still hazy, but the back of the truck was too familiar. The feel of bruises growing on her wrists and ankles too close.

  Why did he come? They were all going to die.

  The betrayal of her captain was fogged by the need to get away. She never was the smart one. Only lucky. She acted on emotion and instinct back then, just like she was now. Like a caged cat.

  The fire chief looked at her like a starving dog looks at a steak. The captain treated her like an annoyance. She'd always thought of him as a strong man with experience and intellect. Now, he sounded like a fat freak, just like the rest of them.

  "Touch her and I'll kill you," she heard Duncan say. He must have read the look on the chief's face, too.

  Tanner's deep laugh filled the back of the truck.

  "She's too old for you, Captain," McKinney said. "Let me have her."

  Nickie's arms and legs thrashed against the cuffs. Not at the thought of the chief's hands on her, but the thought of the captain's hands on the girls.

  "If you take another step, Duncan, I'm going to let the honorable fire chief here have his way with her," Tanner said. "What were you planning? We've got your girl. You lost your gun. Police issue." He held it up. Shit, that was her gun.

  "Frisk him," Tanner said to the chief. "You do know how to frisk, don't you? Or are you afraid? You're still sporting a healthy bruise on your eye from this morning."

  "Fuck you, it was worth it," McKinney said as he handed his gun to the captain. Nickie locked eyes with Duncan and hoped he understood.

  "You missed it, Captain. It was like fucking Fourth of July in the country. I nearly lost it in my gear."

  "You're sick, chief. Take his coat. Bring it here. I hate to do this, Nick, but you were too close. What you did in Vegas?" He shook his head. "You got me in a whole lot of hot water, sweetheart."

  She saw his eyes turn once to the front of the truck and back again. Tanner pressed his gun against the side
of her head. Duncan. No. Keep it together, Duncan, she willed.

  "What about Melbourne?" Duncan asked as McKinney pulled his coat from his arms.

  Good, Duncan. Keep them talking. Nickie turned her head away from the gun and tried her best little-girl cry.

  The captain didn't notice and snapped, "Molly understood, mother fucker. She understood."

  McKinney tossed Duncan's coat to the captain and argued, "She understood fire, boss."

  "Like I said. She understood fire. She understood our... arrangement. You should be kissing my feet," Tanner addressed McKinney, "for having your time with her." Tanner turned to Duncan, now. "It was only for the chief's skills with backdrafts, you know. Little did we know McKinney had the same inkling toward... fresh girls as we did."

  Nickie felt her eyes grow large as she heard what he said. They were all nuts.

  "The chief set the fires, even with his crush on your aunt." He said the last part like a spoiled child teasing a playmate. "Brusco's disappearance was a gift. He was a tool. Didn't have the stomach for what Molly wanted, needed. Skipped town as soon as he learned Molly blew up your aunt's folks." He took another long drag on his cigarette like they were sitting around the break room having coffee talk. "Molly's crazy bat mother, too. No stomach for it. She was all talk. Wanted retribution for what you all put her daughter through. Pretended to be crippled. It's your fault Molly's dead you know. You wouldn't let her have her freedom. Her privacy." His hand shook as he spoke of it. Ashes from the end of his cigarette flicked to the floor. "Lucy insisted on coming with me when I set the bombs to your cars, but then got a fucking conscience and has hid in her house since."

  Tanner turned his gaze to her. Finally, he reacted to her cries. Predictable.

  Not yet, Duncan, she willed. The captain leaned close to her. She could smell his cigarette breath. She craned her head as far away from him as she could without seeming too obvious, then whimpered again.

  She heard nothing from Duncan. It more than worried her.

  The chief yelled, "Hey!" to the captain as he sniffed her like a freaking dog.

  With her head craned away from him, she had the wind up space she needed. Using her shoulders for purchase, she sailed the side of her head into the captain's face, hitting him square in the nose. Then, she howled through the duct tape.