Hard to Kill - Debt Collector 4 (A Jack Winchester Thriller)

by Jon Mills

  Isabel moved over to Theresa, grabbed her by the arm and helped her out of bed. Barely able to walk, she groaned in pain as Isabel wrapped an arm around her shoulders and took most of her weight. At the door she glanced out one more time. The security guard was holding him back with multiple shots. She opened the door and glanced down the other end of the corridor. There was an exit stairwell.

  “Are you ready?”

  Theresa nodded and Isabel moved out. Bullets were ricocheting off the walls, large chunks of drywall flew in the air making the place look like it was snowing. Like a horse with blinders on, she focused on the door and practically dragged Theresa towards it. Each step of the way she could hear her wincing in pain. She had no idea if the people who were responsible for hurting Theresa had come to finish off the job, or if this was related to Jack. Either way she wasn’t going to let the only person who could help her potentially catch Jack die.

  With one arm wrapped around Theresa and the other gripping her gun, she fired off several rounds and then shouldered the door to the stairway.

  “Can you make it down?” she yelled.

  She didn’t need to ask her twice. Theresa held on to the handrail and started down the steep steps. Meanwhile Isabel pushed the door open and assisted the security guard who had now been hit in the arm. This guy was insane; he continued to press forward with little concern for whether he would be hit. Bullets peppered the wall close to her and she felt a chunk of concrete hit her in the face. She looked back at Theresa who had only made it down one flight of steps. There were two more to go. At this rate she wouldn’t make it. Isabel pulled the fire alarm on the wall, abandoned her post and rushed down the stairs to help. The sound of police sirens could be heard echoing outside. As they continued down the next flight, Isabel kept looking up expecting the man to come bursting through the doors and fire at them, but he never appeared.

  By the time they had made it down to the next floor, the fire sprinkler system above had kicked in and water gushed out, turning the tiled floor into a slip and slide. Soaked, out of breath, and frantic to get her to safety, Isabel made a decision to head into the second floor level and get Theresa into a safe room while she reassessed the situation.

  Isabel crouched in the doorway of a room, her eyes flitting up and down the corridor. Water streamed down her face as her eyes darted back and forth.

  Seconds, then minutes passed. When she finally saw police enter she breathed a sigh of relief. She would later find out that the assailant had killed two security guards and escaped.

  Chapter Eighteen

  When Jack received the phone call he was on his way to the hospital. He didn’t recognize the number and for a moment he considered not answering it. With Agent Baker after him, he didn’t know who she had been in contact with. Had she spoken to Theresa? She wasn’t picking up so he’d decided to visit her at the hospital.

  “Jack. It’s me. Billy.”

  “Billy?”

  “You said you wanted to help.”

  Jack snorted. He knew it wouldn’t be long before Billy would call him.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I think I know how to turn this situation around but I need your help carrying out a few things.”

  “What is it?”

  “Probably best I show you. Can you meet me in ten minutes at a coffee house on Columbia Street?”

  Jack ran a hand through his hair. “I was on my way to the hospital.”

  “We have less than twenty-four hours.”

  Jack sighed. “I can be there in an hour.”

  He didn’t like the guy and he definitely didn’t like the fact that he wouldn’t tell him what he needed help with, but if it meant making sure they were safe, it was worth it.

  Jack placed a phone call to Jamaar and he was more than happy to take him. It would be roughly a fifty-minute drive. Along the way Jamaar kept on asking him questions about what he did for a living. It was then that he’d remembered that he’d forgotten to get back in touch with the woman who had phoned him for help. Shit! He berated himself. Whatever hope he had of carving out a living helping others was going to have to wait. Since getting out of prison he had spent more time helping others for free. Had it not been for the money that Eddie had left behind he would have been begging on the streets by now.

  “So what business are you in?”

  Sitting in the back of the cab he barely heard what Jamaar had asked him over the noise of the music that was blaring out of his speakers. He had in his hand the scrap of paper with Dana’s new address and number. He had considered phoning her but after all the shit that he’d been through, there was no way in hell he was going to drag her back into it. Though he was curious to know how she and Jason were doing. Had the agent badgered them for details about where he was and what he had done? Had Dana told her?

  “I do a bit of this, and that.”

  Jamaar laughed. “I hear you, mon, you have to have your hand in a lot of jars nowadays just to pay your way.”

  “How long have you been driving?”

  “Good question.” He lowered the volume on the radio. Perhaps he shouldn’t have asked him that. He was the kind of guy who made his business from talking to clients. All cabbies were either super silent or you couldn’t get them to shut up. There was no happy medium.

  “It’s got to be coming up eleven years. I did it for a while back in my home country but there wasn’t hardly any money to be made in it. Besides, I had my fair share of criminals rob me. That’s why I got the hell out of there. What about you? Where do you come from?”

  “New York.”

  “You are far from home.”

  “It’s not home.”

  He had no idea where home was. New York had been all he had ever known. For a short while Rockland Cove was home but that was just a vague memory now.

  “What about family? You have a lady that keeps you warm at night? Kids?”

  Had anyone asked him that a few months ago he would have laughed. Jack pocketed the number and pulled out the photo of Ruby. He handed it to Jamaar. Jamaar looked down then back at the road in front of him.

  “Cute kid. She’s yours?”

  “Yeah. Well, I think so.”

  “Oh. Baby momma wasn’t honest with yah?”

  “I’m not sure,” he replied taking the photo back from him. “What about you?”

  “No mon, I love the single life too much. I tried it for a while. You know the whole trying to settle down but…” He blew out a puff of smoke. “They want to change you. You know. Like she was sweet and all but then when she moved in, she got all crazy like. Telling me where to put my clothes, and what I should do. I felt like she was suffocating me. It didn’t last. That’s when I moved here.”

  “And kids?”

  He flipped the visor down above him. Attached to the visor with a clip was a photo of two boys. One looked around ten years of age, the other around seven. He tapped the photo and a big smile spread across his face.

  “My boys.”

  “You don’t miss them?”

  “Every day but down in Jamaica I couldn’t offer them anything. I could barely rub together two dollars.”

  “Will you return?”

  “No, if I can get enough money I will bring them up here. It’s a better life than there.”

  When Jack arrived at the café, he handed Jamaar some green and told him to wait while he looked around for Billy. He had no idea if he would show up or if he was just messing him around. When he spotted him inside drinking from a cup, he leaned down into the window and told Jamaar that if he wanted to hang around he probably would catch a ride back with him. He told him he would give him enough to cover for the day. He just wanted to make sure he had a ride back to the French Quarter.

  Jamaar agreed and told him he would park his cab over in the lot across the street. “Any problem, just call me.”

  Jack nodded and entered the café. Billy was tapping his fingers against his leg. His eyes darted around the room as
Jack came over.

  “I thought you weren’t going to show.”

  “It’s a long ride. This better be worth it.”

  “It is. Twenty minutes of your time and I’ll have this all dealt with. No one will get harmed. Come on, my ride is out front.”

  “Where’s Ruby?”

  “Carla is looking after her.”

  That meant no one was looking after her. Jack ground his teeth.

  Jack joined him in a beat-up Chevy truck and they rolled out. Inside it was disgusting. Coffee cups all over the floor, and a sweatshirt on the ground that stank of beer and oil. The seats themselves were cracked. Foam was sticking out and he could even feel the springs beneath him. Across the front of his window were old parking tickets and dead flies. In the middle console the ashtray was full of blunts.

  “So what is this all about?”

  “You’ll see.”

  The truck bumped its way around the town and out towards the outskirts. Billy took a left turn down a dirt road that led up to a large house that he imagined was owned by a farmer as all around the land looked as if it had been tilled and prepared for crops to be grown. A large brown fence ran around the perimeter. As they came up to the clapboard house, Billy pulled up in front and hopped out. Jack followed him up to the door and then Billy paused.

  “I didn’t leave the door open.”

  He pulled out a gun that he had tucked under his shirt behind him and that immediately placed Jack on alert. Jack reached for his as they ventured in. Inside it was dark. No curtains had been opened. Billy pressed forward towards the back room as if he knew where he was going. As he disappeared around a corner he let out a high-pitched cry. Jack readied himself for a confrontation but it never happened. Joining him, he observed Billy frantically looking around the ground, then inside a room. He banged his fist against the side of his head.

  “Shit,” he cried and proceeded to kick over a table and smash a lamp.

  “What’s going on?” Jack said keeping his gun lowered.

  “It was right here. I left it right here.”

  “What?”

  “The meth. Packets of it. There had to have been at least a hundred grand in meth.”

  “Whose house is this?”

  “A friend of mine.”

  “And where’s he?”

  “In there. Dead.”

  Jack didn’t believe him at first. He headed into the room that Billy was in and peered around the corner. Sure enough, there was a body lying on the ground with a bullet wound in the back of the head.

  “Did you do this?”

  He nodded. Still holding the gun in his hand he scratched his head and slumped down on the leather sofa before kicking his legs up onto the table.

  “I’m so dead.”

  Jack stared at the dead man and the empty room.

  “Go back to the beginning. What happened?”

  Billy began moaning as if he was in pain, then he started smashing his own fist into the side of his head. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”

  Jack was starting to get a little bit pissed off by this guy. Billy brought him up to speed on what he had done that morning and everything that he had in mind.

  “So you were just going to rob him?”

  “No. He owed me money and I knew he was dealing. I just thought he could give me the forty grand but I should have guessed he wouldn’t. If I didn’t put a bullet in him, he would have done it to me.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Who cares? It doesn’t matter now.”

  “Well, who do you think took it?”

  “How the hell should I know? His partners? Whoever else was staying here.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Isabel got off the phone with Simon after giving him an update. He wasn’t in the best mood so she never told him about the incident in the hotel but the hospital shooting had been all over the news. She tried to reassure him that it was under control. He didn’t believe her. She was getting closer but he didn’t see it that way. It was all excuses.

  “Find him or I will put someone else on this and you’ll be filling out reports for the department until you retire.”

  “You have my word.”

  Her word was shot. She was in way over her head and she knew it. This wasn’t just about hunting down Jack Winchester, she was now being pulled into whatever shit Theresa had got herself caught up in.

  After she had been seen to by medics, the hospital placed Theresa in a different ward and the security was doubled on the hospital. Soaked from the sprinklers, Isabel badly wanted to get out of her clothes, take a hot shower and slip into something less sticky but that was going to have to wait.

  “You are not telling me something, Theresa. Now what is it?”

  She looked embarrassed, scared and Isabel could tell she had her where she wanted her. It was one thing to be threatened by the FBI, and another to find yourself running for your life.

  “These men aren’t going to stop, Theresa. I can’t help you, if you don’t tell me what happened. The hospital says you were raped and beaten. But by who?”

  “I don’t know. I told you that. I didn’t know the men. Billy got himself caught up in something and now he owes them money.”

  Isabel nodded, now it was starting to make sense.

  “And how’s Jack fit into all of this? Does Billy owe him money?”

  “No. I told you he’s not involved in any of this.”

  “Where can I find Billy?”

  Theresa’s chin dropped. “Come on, Theresa, we are going around in circles here.”

  “He phoned earlier. Before you came. Said he needed Jack’s number.”

  “You have Jack’s number?”

  She had let the cat out of the bag. A look spread across her face, the realization that she had just dropped the ball.

  “Give me the number, Theresa.”

  “My phone is in my bag. You are going to arrest him, aren’t you?”

  “I’m going to talk to him.”

  She hadn’t really thought about what she was going to do. She had the New Orleans police at her disposal and she could phone in for backup from U.S. Marshals, but now she wasn’t dealing with one killer, she had two. Who was the other one? Maybe she could catch two birds with one stone. It certainly would appease Simon and his superiors. The question was, who was the man who came into the hospital working for? Was he part of the group that had beaten Theresa? Or was he Mafia-related?

  After she retrieved her cell phone she took down the number and then handed the phone to Theresa.

  “Call him.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Tell him exactly what happened except you’re not going to mention me.”

  “But he’ll show up here.”

  “Exactly.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Jack paced back and forth. On one hand he wanted to smack Billy around and knock some sense into him and on the other he realized that time was ticking. When his phone started ringing, he glanced at Billy who was entertaining a pity party of one with a bottle of beer. Jack stepped into the kitchen. It was Theresa.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. There’s been a bit of an incident down here.”

  “What happened?”

  “You near a TV?”

  “Yeah, hold on.”

  Jack snagged up the clicker and switched it on. He switched it to the channel she gave and turned up the volume. Video showed the outside of the hospital and a reporter. Lots of police and medics were in the background. Fire trucks had their lights flashing.

  From what we have managed to learn today, there was only one person involved. The assailant was in his late thirties. So far there have been two casualties. They will be releasing the names of the victims but it’s believed they were security guards. There’s been no mention of anyone else injured. But people today are shaken up here in New Orleans. Now we have a witness here who says she saw the man.

  A woman in scrubs
came into the frame.

  I was just getting ready to finish my shift when I heard the gunshots. I was at the front desk and I spoke to the man. He wanted directions to a room of a patient.

  The reporter pressed her for more details.

  What did he look like? Can you describe what he said?

  The woman looked as if she was about to speak when a police officer came over and cut the interview short. Jack looked on in shock.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “He was coming for me, Jack.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Before she answered him, she blurted out, “Jack, the FBI is here.”

  The moment she said that, Jack heard a scuffle as if Theresa was wrestling for control of the phone. Suddenly it stopped and he heard her voice for the first time.

  “Jack Winchester. I’m Agent Baker —”

  Jack cut her off. “I know who you are.”

  “Then you know that I have to bring you in.”

  “I’m not coming in. I’ve done my time.”

  “Not for the killings in L.A.”

  Jack didn’t reply. The FBI was known for recording conversation and then using it later in court as admissible evidence. Jack glanced back into the living room where Billy was. He squeezed the bridge of his nose feeling the weight of the world closing in on him.

  “Who shot up that hospital?”

  Now it was Isabel’s turn to go quiet.

  “I thought you might know. Is Billy there?”

  “What are you going to do with Theresa?”

  “That depends on you, Jack. I don’t want to charge her but I will.”

  “She has a daughter.”

  Isabel chuckled on the other end of the line. “Yeah, I heard you are a father now. Do you want your kid to grow up knowing that you killed people?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “No. I understand. I’ve learned a lot about you over the past few months, Jack, and I have got to say that you are a danger to society.”