I played possum ‘til my attacker got close. Then I kicked him in his injured right leg. He screamed and fell to the street. In the distance, I could hear the sirens from an ambulance. There wasn’t enough time to wait for them to save me, though. The masked man was already getting back up.
On all fours, I crawled back to my car. Inside of it was my purse. And inside of that was my gun. I just had to beat my attacker there.
I climbed into the front seat of my car. My purse was on the floor near where I woke up. As I went through it looking for the .38 caliber revolver, the masked man grabbed my ankle. He was trying to pull me out. And he succeeded in doing so, but not before I got my gun.
The masked man kicked me once. I didn’t feel it. Adrenaline numbed it. When he went for another kick, I rolled over and fired my weapon. Immediately after shooting, I regretted it. I regretted it because my aim was true. The shot tore through his mask and took a chunk of his head with it.
Shell Shocked
I sat on the curb in complete disbelief over what had just transpired. In a span of five minutes someone tried to strangle me to death, I got in a car crash and then I killed a man. It was too much to process.
The ambulance and police arrived without me even noticing. My gaze was transfixed on the street just a couple of feet in front of me. I wanted to cry but couldn’t. I wanted to scream but couldn’t.
“Riley? Riley!?” Someone tried to get my attention. I slowly lifted my head up and saw Sam. “Give me the gun, Riley.”
I looked down at my hand. And I was indeed still holding my .38.
“Just give me the gun.”
I handed Sam my gun. As I did, my hand was shaking uncontrollably. The moment it left my possession, the tears started.
Sam did what he thought he was supposed to. He sat down and hugged me. The last thing I wanted at that moment was to be touched, let alone embraced. But he meant well.
“C’mon,” said Sam as he stood back up. He held out his hand for me to grab. “C’mon, you need to get checked out.”
“Checked out?” I asked quietly.
“You were in an accident. You need to get looked at. The paramedics are just over there,” Sam pointed to the nearby ambulance.
I took Sam’s hand and he lifted me up. My head started spinning. It took a few moments for the world around me to stop moving. When it did, I was reminded of the horror I had just gone through.
Sam and I walked over to the paramedics, who were looking at the man from the minivan. He was sitting in the ambulance with a neck brace on. There were a few cuts and bruises on his face, but he looked okay. Words cannot express how relieved I was to see that he wasn’t seriously hurt.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I was distracted. I looked at my radio for only a second. When I looked back up, it was too late. God, I’m so sorry. I’ll … my insurance will pay for this. I feel so bad.” The guy was all over the place.
“That’s fine, really.” I just wanted him to stop talking.
As the paramedics started looking me over, I saw the body of my attacker being loaded into the county coroner’s van. I had to see who he was. His face, I had to see his face.
“Ma’am can you follow the light?” asked one of the paramedics as she shined a small flashlight in my eyes and moved it left to right. “Good.” She put the flashlight away and then started to look over the rest of my body. Both of the medics insisted on me getting on a gurney, but I refused.
I waved off the paramedic who was treating me and made my way over to the coroners. Sam tried to stop me. But I was driven. Nobody could have prevented me from finding out.
The man I had killed was in a black body bag. When I got to it, the two guys who worked for the county coroner gave me strange looks.
“I need to see.” I didn’t know what else to say. How do you tell someone that you want to take a look at a corpse? It couldn’t have been a request they received on a regular basis.
“Ummm…” One of the morticians looked over at the other, then back at me. “What?”
I didn’t answer. Instead I reached for the zipper. The morticians tried to stop me. Sam stepped in.
“Let her see.”
“But… ?”
Sam put his hand on one of the mortician’s shoulder. “Trust me, her mind is made up. There is no stopping her. You might as well let her see.”
The morticians backed off. I felt the cold metal of the zipper. Then I pulled. Who I found inside that black bag was surprising, to say the least. Staring up at the night sky with dead eyes was Jimmy Alvarez. It was the same Jimmy Alvarez I had had dinner with days before. He was the same Jimmy Alvarez who was handsome, but talked too much. Well, he wasn’t quite as handsome with a chunk of his forehead missing.
I’d seen dead bodies before. The first one had been when I was only twenty. My roommate at the George Mason dormitories was dumped by her longtime boyfriend. Over the Christmas break, she decided to slit her wrists horizontally not vertically. Her suicide note was dated Christmas Eve. I came back to find her bloated in our bathtub.
When I discovered my dead roommate, I was shocked and sad, but I didn’t throw up. For whatever reason, when I saw Jimmy I threw up all over the street. Probably due to the fact that I was the one who had put him in that bag.
“You know him?” asked Sam. He gently rubbed my back in a circular motion.
“His name is Jimmy Alvarez. Amy set me up with him a couple of nights back.”
“She did?” There was a hint of jealousy to Sam’s voice. “You okay?”
I spit out the last remnants of vomit. I’m sure I looked enchanting. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just, I’ve never… ”
“Killed anyone, I know. And I wish you never had to.” Sam made sure to make eye contact with me. I had rarely seen him so serious. “But the fact of the matter is you had to. If you hadn’t, he would’ve killed you. What you did here was justified. There isn’t any reason to feel guilty.”
I didn’t feel guilty about what I did. Still, there was a sickening feeling in my gut. And that was a good thing, even if it didn’t feel like it at the time. Feeling that way was natural. I may not have felt that way at the time, but it was proof that I had a conscience.
“Thanks. Really, Sam, it means a lot.”
“There’s no need to thank me. This is what friends do.”
Sam escorted me back to his car. We both got in. I decided I needed to tell Sam everything I had learned about the fires and the thermite. Things were getting too dangerous to keep going at it by myself.
“We need to talk,” I said, seconds after we entered the car. Talking would help me get my mind off of the horrors of that night. It’d help me. And it would help Sam.
“Sure.” Sam was more than willing. I think he had suspected that I was holding out on him. He was a detective, after all. And no matter how goofy he could be, he was one of the smartest men that I knew.
“I’ve … there’s some things I haven’t told you.”
“About?”
“The fires at the church and marina.”
“Go on.” Technically Sam could’ve arrested me for purposefully withholding information about an active police investigation. But I’m lucky that I’m cute. There was no way in hell that he’d ever do that.
“When I looked over what was left of the church, I noticed something. Some of the piping looked like it had melted.”
“Okay, what does that mean? It was a fire. Things got hot.”
“Yeah, but most fires don’t get nearly hot enough to melt iron. I looked it up. The average structural fire burns at about one thousand, one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Iron melts at two thousand, seven hundred and ninety-five degrees.”
Sam took a moment to take in what I told him. “So … what can burn hot enough to melt metal? Don’t tell me you don’t know because we both know that you do.”
“I think the fires were started with thermite.”
“Thermite? You mean that stuff those crazy ass conspira
cy theorists think were used in the twin towers?”
“I don’t know about any conspiracies, but yeah, thermite. It’s a mixture of iron oxide and aluminum in powdered form. Welders, demolition teams and schools are the only ones who have a reason to use the stuff. But it’s not illegal to possess, so technically anyone could get some.
“Around us, the only people who’d use thermite are the artists over at Metal Works and maybe the chemistry teacher at Jefferson, a Leo Grant. To be honest, I didn’t get the impression that either of them were arsonists.”
“Where would they get the stuff to make the thermite?” asked Sam. He was no longer looking at me. Instead he stared out the front windshield. I couldn’t tell if it was disappointment or anger.
“They’d get it from a chemical supply company. The only one even remotely near us is Chesapeake Chemical.”
“Really?” Sam leaned over me and opened his glove compartment. He took out a piece of paper. “So I guess that explains why this showed up on my desk yesterday. I’m not sure if it was meant for me, though. It had a note attached that said it was for a Detective Williams. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?”
Shit, he had caught me dead to rights on this one. “I might.”
“Look, I’m happy you’re helping with this case. I’m willing to cut you some slack and get you access that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise. But you can’t break the law Riley. Impersonating an officer? That’s a crime. If you were anyone else I would arrest you.”
“I know and I’m sorry. I just … I wasn’t thinking and panicked.”
“Don’t be sorry, just don’t do it again.”
There was an awkward minute of silence. Then Sam broke it.
“Take a look at what it says.” Sam was referring to the paper. He handed it over to me.
I took a look at the paper. It was a list of everyone who had ordered powdered aluminum, iron oxide and rolls of magnesium. There weren’t many customers who bought any of them. Narrowing down who ordered all three was easy.
“R. Branch at Twelve Pine Lane? Where the hell is Pine Lane?” I’d never heard of the address, which was strange because according to the paper it was in Stone Harbor. I had lived in Stone Harbor my whole life. Not once had I ever heard of Pine Lane.
“I was going to go check that out tonight. But considering everything that’s happened … I’m going to wait till tomorrow.”
“You’re going to wait? Why?”
“Because you’re coming with me. I need that big brain of yours.”
I leaned over and hugged Sam. That time, it wasn’t awkward. It felt right. When we were done, he started the car.
“We have to go back to the station. You need to give a statement about what happened here. Think you’re up for that?”
“Sure.”
“And once that’s done we can go get a drink or something. Maybe that will help you get your mind off of all this. What do you say? That sound good to you?”
For once I didn’t protest. After the night I’d had, maybe Sam’s affections weren’t such a bad thing. “Yeah, it does. Let’s do it.”
Pine Lane
The next night, at the Stone Harbor Police station, Sam and I looked up the address for R. Branch. Pine Lane was a tiny street with only thirteen residents. From the GPS, it looked like the street was nestled far away from any main roads and deep in the woods near Valentine Park. The address was registered to a Robert and Destiny Branch. Gotta love those hippy parents. Robert had a few arrests for drug possession on his sheet, but that was about it.
Pine Lane was very appropriately named. The forest around the street was thick with pine trees. You could smell their needles in the air. It was dark, and there was barely any moonlight.
“Now, when we get there, I take the lead. If you have anything to add, let me know. But don’t just start asking questions.” Sam was driving. Even if I had wanted to, my car had been towed to an auto shop after the accident.
I didn’t audibly agree, but I did nod my head. When I had woken up that morning, my throat was sore. There was bruising around my neck. Seeing the after effects, I was surprised Jimmy didn’t take my head off. Little cuts peppered my face. Vanity made me concerned that they would heal into scars.
“Talk about being in the middle of nowhere!” Sam said. “Where the hell is this place? I swear, it takes a different breed of man to live somewhere like this.” Even with our GPS, finding the Branch residence was hard.
“Now arriving at Twelve Pine Lane,” said the robotic voice of our digital navigator.
Sam stopped the car. There was a mailbox next to a dirt driveway. I took a look, and it looked impossibly dark. No wonder we had a hard time finding it. We must’ve passed it three or four times before spotting the rusted box with worn metal numbers on it. Neither of us could even see the house or any of its lights.
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” Sam looked of at me. We both started laughing. It hurt, but it relieved the tension. There hadn’t been much to laugh about these days.
Sam started driving down the driveway. It was bumpy and unkempt. I could see and hear a dog running alongside the car in the woods near the passenger side.
As we got closer, I could start to make the lights from the house’s windows. Almost all of them were on. Then I could see the silhouette. And then, finally, I could start to see the details.
I’d seen a fair number of sad buildings in my time. My offices were once abandoned and surrounded by barren structures. The Branch residence was something special, though.
Siding was coming off in noticeable chunks. The lawn was overgrown to the point that you could easily mistake it for corn. Several of the windows were missing panes of glass. In their place were pieces of cardboard. I think one had the front of a cereal box taped on. And there was an open garage that was filled with junk to the point that the door couldn’t be closed.
The same dog that had followed Sam’s car greeted us when we got out. It was a mangy thing. Still, it was very cute. Immediately, I knew what breed it was. Short tan fur and a tail made of pure muscle. It was an adorable yellow lab. That wasn’t the last time I saw it.
“They might as well put up a sign that says ‘meth dealer’,” joked Sam as he pantomimed a sign in the air. “All right, let’s go.”
I followed Sam towards the front door. There was a stack of mildew-stained mail on the rotting porch. Sam opened the screen door. Then he started knocking. No one answered. He knocked again. We waited a couple minutes.
“Hello! Stone Harbor Police! Is anyone here?” Sam yelled as loud as he could without being obnoxious. There was no answer. He looked over at me. I shrugged.
“Try the knob,” I suggested through a scratchy voice.
Sam turned the door knob. It was unlocked. Through the small crack of the door opening, a putrid smell hit us. Both of us had smelled something like it before. Dead bodies had that same aroma. He took out his Beretta. “Stay here.”
I waited outside on the porch as Sam went inside. From what I could see from the first doorway, the exterior matched the interior. By that, I mean it was disgusting. The best way to describe it was as a drug den. Nobody who lived there could have even thought about cleaning for at least the previous two years.
Sam had his gun aimed in front of him. He quickly but cautiously made his way through the foyer and into the rest of the house. I watched him turn a corner into what I assumed was a dining or living room. After a few minutes he slowly backed out. The look he gave me was concerning.
“Stay there,” Sam whispered to me. He proceeded to continue checking the house.
What had he seen in that room? I found myself concerned. He was clearly a little flustered. I’d never seen that look on his face before.
Finally, Sam appeared back in the foyer. He holstered his pistol. “It’s all clear.”
I started to come inside. Sam motioned with his hand for me to stop.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m not sure you wanna see this, Riley.”
“Shut up,” I said as I walked in.
The smell was even worse inside. How anyone could live in such a shit hole was beyond me. Everything had a strange yellow tint to it. I felt dirty just being there.
Sam walked past me and took out his cell phone. I went into the room that has shaken him up earlier. It was a family room, except there was no family. Only the corpses of what I assumed to be Robert and Destiny Branch.
The Branches were on the family room’s only couch. Robert slouched over to one side. He had a gunshot wound where his left eye was supposed to be. Blood streamed down his face into a neat little stain on a couch cushion. Resting against his shoulder was a rundown-looking woman. I figured she was Destiny. She had a gunshot wound to her cheek. It was small and clean. Behind her the wall was splattered with bone fragments and blood.
Jamie Garrett - Riley Reid 02 - Fire and Lies Page 6