Vengeance: A Reece Culver Thriller - Book 1

by Bryan Koepke

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Reece followed Haisley and Mobley up toward the top of a forested hill and knew they’d made it when he heard Haisley yell, “Woo Hoo! Look at that, boys.”

  They looked across a small valley toward a string of tractor-trailer trucks driving east on I-70. Heartened by this discovery, they walked another few hours before the feel of firm hot pavement met the soles of their boots. Reece pulled out his cellphone and for the first time had coverage. He thought about whom to call and handed the phone to Mobley. He watched him closely as he dialed the number for the Vail detective he’d met a few days before. Mobley got through and told Detective Hughes about their predicament, and current location at the guardrail of the entrance ramp onto I-70 east at the Edwards exit. Reece watched Mobley hang up and grabbed his phone back.

  “What’s wrong with you, Culver?” Mobley asked.

  “Plenty. Look, when this friend of yours comes to pick us up, I don’t want you running your mouth. I want Vinton Blackwell, and I don’t want the Vail PD or anyone else getting in my way. You understand?” Reece said, staring down at Mobley.

  “Reece, I think you’ll like Detective Hughes. He’s a real good guy. One of us,” Mobley said, sounding much more alert than he’d been earlier.

  Reece walked a ways down the guardrail and heard someone following. He turned to find Haisley staring down at his own cell phone, then making a funny look.

  “What’s going on, Haisley?” Reece asked.

  Haisley grabbed Reece’s good arm and tugged him a few paces farther away from Mobley, then leaned close. “I’ve got a bunch of missed calls from Agent Cox.”

  “You going to call him and check in?” Reece said, alarmed.

  “No, read this last text message,” Haisley said, passing his phone.

  Reece read the screen of Haisley’s phone: “Suspect Sam Shanks is in Vail Colorado. Closing in on his location. Call when you get this.”

  Reece handed the phone back to Haisley, and they exchanged a meaningful look. Haisley pointed as a gray Crown Victoria pulled up beside the guardrail a few yards behind them. A tall silver-haired man in business attire got out, carrying a trio of bottled water containers.

  “You guys look like hell,” Detective Hughes said, handing out the water.

  “We feel like hell,” Reece said, glad to be back to civilization.

  “What the hell happened?”

  Mobley supplied the lie: “We blew a tire on our Tahoe and went over the side of a cliff.”

  Reece watched Hughes, knowing he probably wasn’t buying Mobley’s explanation, but he didn’t feel like he needed to do any explaining.

  “Let’s get you guys stitched up.”

  After driving into town, Hughes dropped them off at the Vail Valley Medical Center. Reece got a couple of X-rays and it was determined that he had a tear in his rotator cuff, and would need to be scheduled for surgery the following week. Haisley got a few stiches for a head wound. Mobley remained at the hospital for observation with a banged-up knee, three broken ribs, and possible internal injuries.

  Hungry as hell, they found the same restaurant they’d eaten burgers at several days earlier and discussed their options.

  “I think we should go have a chat with Mobley and make sure he doesn’t give us up,” Reece said, starting to feel the effects of the pain meds the doc had prescribed.

  “I’ve already taken care of Mobley. Detective Hughes knows the story about Cox too, and as far as I can tell, he’s not cooperating with the FBI.”

  “That’s good to know. Thanks for taking care of our liability.”

  Reece felt his phone rattle in the front pants pocket of his jeans.

  “Hello?”

  “Reece, it’s your brother Raymond. Have you heard from Mom?”

  “No, I haven’t,” Reece said, surprised by the call. When did his brother ever call him?

  “She’s missing, Reece.”

  “Missing? What are you talking about?”

  “Well, it all started out when the Toyota dealer called Mavis Averton looking for Mom,” Raymond said.

  “Yeah, Mavis called me, but she thought Mom might have gone out of town with some of her friends. Are you saying that wasn’t the case?”

  “Reece, that was over a week ago. No one has heard a thing from her.”

  “Have you called the Tulsa police?”

  “Yeah, we did three days ago and no one’s seen a thing.”

  “So you filled a missing person’s report?” Reece said.

  “Yeah.”

  “How about my rental car?” Reece said. “The blue Mazda 6. I lent it to Mom just before I came back to Denver so she’d have something to drive while her car was in the shop.”

  His brother sounded eager about this possible lead. “I don’t know about that. Maybe you should call the rental car place and report it missing too.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Raymond. Hey, call me if she turns up. I’m hoping she just went out of town or something, but this doesn’t seem like her. I hope she’s okay.”

  Reece ended the call, feeling prickles of dread dancing down his spine.

  “What’s going on, Culver?” Haisley said.

  “It’s Mom, she seems to be missing.”

  Haisley was immediately alarmed. “That can’t be good. Are you going to go back to Tulsa to look for her?”

  “That’s what I should do, but we’re too close to catching these guys.”

  Reece stared down at the table, thinking about the last time he’d spoken to his mother. Then he thought about the rental car and reminded himself to call the rental place in Tulsa.

  “What’s your plan for catching Blackwell and Shanks?” Haisley said.

  “The last time I talked to Crystal, she invited me up to Vail to go skiing. I’m thinking I should call her and take her up on the invitation,” Reece said, knowing she was the best chance he had at getting close to Blackwell.

  Haisley was not too receptive to this idea. “I don’t know, Reece. You’re pretty beat up. You’re in no condition to ski, and that crazy bitch will do anything to protect her stepfather.”

  “I know, but we can’t just wait around until Cox shows up and offers Blackwell immunity so he can put Shanks behind bars. We’re talking about the guy who killed my father.”

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Sam Shanks craned his neck sideways, surveying the green roof of Vinton Blackwell’s villa as the Lear 55 turned in a steep bank, pointing one of its wings toward the ground. He spotted Blackwell’s Black Range Rover parked behind his daughter Crystal’s red Mercedes and began laughing to himself. The plane bumped violently and his smile vanished. Shanks gripped the armrests of the plush leather recliner, wondering if something was wrong. The jet rolled back to wings level and he could feel the sensation of being sucked downward in his seat. He stared at the house, wondering if Blackwell had managed to get off one last shot.

  “Sir, it might be a good idea to fasten your seatbelt if you haven’t already,” one of the pilots announced over the intercom. “We’ve met a few patches of turbulence this morning. Once we get up to cruising altitude, it should be smooth sailing.”

  Shanks cinched his lap belt tighter and leaned back, but felt the plane roll right into another turn. He clenched his teeth and gripped both armrests. The plane rolled back level and he could feel the acceleration of the twin turbofans pulling them upward toward thinner air. He thought of his new home situated in the center of the two thousand acres on the outskirts of Montevideo and the priceless paintings stowed in the rear baggage compartment.

  Before long he’d be free from his life of crime in the U.S. Selling the paintings in South America would bring its challenges, but Shanks had connections to more than a few people in that part of the world. He knew that wealth went hand in hand with ego, and people with ego were always interested in collecting things of value.

  Shanks imagined the surprise on Vinton Blackwell’s face when he discovered the missing Van
Gogh. He wished he’d been able to video the event, but just knowing he’d beaten Blackwell was good enough. He bit his lip at the thought of double crossing the psychopathic killer. It worried him. Blackwell would have been better off dead. He thought about Michael Zimeratti meeting his death while skiing with Blackwell’s daughter. He’d underestimated Crystal, as he was sure many men before him had. She was dangerous and better off left behind.

  The co-pilot undid his seat belt and climbed out of the Lear jet’s cramped cockpit, heading toward the bathroom. He pushed open the cockpit door and glanced over at their sole passenger Sam Shanks.

  “We’re past 35,000 feet. It should be smooth the rest of the flight until we stop for fuel, Mr. Shanks.”

  “Good, I don’t like bumps,” Shanks said.

  Suddenly both men heard a loud “pop” outside the airplane.

  “What was that?” Shanks said, seeing the baffled look on the co-pilot’s face.

  “Not sure.”

  The airplane rolled violently to the right, going inverted, and Shanks watched the pilot slam face first into the wooden credenza between two seats in the row ahead of him. Blood streamed from his nose, and he lay motionless, then pushed himself up, and crawled back toward the cockpit.

  Deep inside the left wing of the Lear 55, a small explosive device triggered by a barometrically activated fuse had exploded. This sheared off the attachment hinges of the left aileron. As an airplane climbs upward, the barometric pressure drops. Because of this fact a bomb’s fuse maker can dial in the precise altitude that the device will explode. In this case that altitude was 36,400 feet above ground level.

  Panicking, Shanks looked out the window of the inverted airplane and felt the downward rush of G’s, as if something was pulling down on him. Up ahead the pilots shouted loudly in the cockpit. The airplane rolled back level, and he looked out the side window toward the wing. Something was wrong with the aileron. It was flapping violently in the wind. He watched as a big piece of torn white metal separated from the wing. He gripped the armrests of the plush leather recliner. The nose of the airplane pitched downward, and Shanks banged his head into the seatback in front of him. His guts tightened and he felt like puking as the airplane spun violently.

  Shanks thought of the Van Gogh parked safely in its wooden crate in the rear of the plane, then Vinton Blackwell, and then he wondered whether he’d survive. Somewhere up in front of him one of the pilots was screaming, “Mayday, Mayday! Denver Center, this is Lear 557 Sierra, Sierra. We are declaring an emergency 120 miles south of Eagle Vail. I repeat, we are going down.”

  Chapter Eighty

  The warm water felt good on Reece’s aching shoulder as he stood in the shower. He’d been filthy the whole time in the hospital. Reece reached up with his good arm and rubbed the spot on his head where he’d been struck in St. Louis. The wound had healed, but it still hurt when he pressed on it. That reminded him of Crystal and he decided to call her after he got dressed. He needed her to get to her father, Vinton Blackwell, but he had added motive now.

  Reece had called the rental car place in Tulsa and reported the car stolen. He wasn’t sure it was, but he figured it would intensify the hunt for his missing mother. The call he’d received earlier from his brother Raymond was gnawing at him. The police had questioned a trucker that thought he saw a collision on a bridge over Lake Keystone west of Tulsa. It was nighttime and he’d been driving past in the westbound lanes when he saw a black truck rear-end a blue car on the opposite side of the highway. Raymond told him they were going to investigate the trucker’s statements and planned on searching the lake for the car.

  Reece toweled off and did his best to get dressed without using his left hand. It was tough doing the things he was used to now that he was a one-armed man, but at the same time made it even more important to follow through with catching the bastard that took his father’s life, and might have killed his mother. Reece thought about his mother driving the Mazda rental car and felt a tremendous pang of guilt. I hope she’s okay.

  Reece stood at the window of the hotel room with his cell phone in his hand. I should call Raymond and tell them. No, that won’t do any good. If it was Mom in the Mazda on the bridge, the damage is already done. Reece struggled with himself, knowing what he should do, but wanting to catch Vinton Blackwell now, worse than anything. He rubbed his eyes, feeling exhausted. If only he had some time to get away from all of this and think things out. But he had run out of time. For all he knew, Special Agent Cox and the FBI were hot on Sam Shanks’ trail and they might catch him and Blackwell first.

  He picked up his phone, ready to call Crystal, his ticket to catching Blackwell. He focused his mind and thought through what he’d say when she answered.

  “Hi, Reece, how’s the investigation going?” Crystal said.

  “It’s going well, Crystal. Hey, I just got up to the mountains for a meeting and I wondered if you wanted to get together for a drink, or something tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow, yeah, I guess we could meet,” she said with a hint of reservation in her voice. “I heard the snow is still good. Do you want to make it a day of skiing and then have dinner up at my villa?”

  “The dinner part sounds good, but I’m not sure I’m up to skiing right now.”

  “I have extra skis and boots if that’s what’s in the way of your hitting the slopes with me,” Crystal said.

  “How about you pick me up at seven and we’ll take it from there,” he said.

  “What hotel are you in?”

  “I’m in the Marriott in Vail. You know the place right?”

  “Ok, how about I meet you in the lobby?”

  “That works great.” He finished the call, wondering if his call had just precipitated a hotel fire at the Marriott later that night. He and Haisley in fact were staying at the Sheraton in Avon.

  Reece heard the door open and Haisley came in with a broad smile on his face. The bandage on his forehead had a small red bloodstain in the middle, but other than that he looked like his old self.

  “You know any place to get a squirrel steak in this fancy ass ski town?” Haisley said.

  He walked past Reece and threw his torn ski jacket on one of the queen beds.

  “Not in this town, but I know a good place up in the hills,” Reece said with a chuckle. “What did the rental car people say when you told them about the Tahoe?”

  “I decided to hold off on that. Buy us a little time, so we can solve this thing before we get the police poking around out by Shanks’ place. I went with Hertz this time.”

  “What do you say, we go pay Mobley a visit?”

  *

  Reece followed Haisley down the hospital hallway toward Mobley’s room. He spotted the nurse who’d taken care of him and gave her a big smile. Oprah was turned up loud on the television set hanging down from the ceiling in Mobley’s semi private room, and he failed to notice their arrival.

  “Since when do you watch Oprah?” Haisley blurted out.

  Mobley scrambled for the remote, hidden in the covers of his hospital bed. The television went black and he looked up, smiling guiltily.

  “What’s the prognosis? Are you going to live?” Reece asked.

  “I got surgery coming tomorrow on the knee, but the ribs are healing up well.” Mobley looked heavily sedated and he talked with slurred speech.

  “Sounds like they got you pumped up on some good meds,” Haisley said.

  “You had any visitors other than us?” Reece asked.

  “Just Hughes. He came by earlier. He’s a really nice guy. Said when I get healed up, he’d take me fishing on his boat.”

  “I hope you’re keeping your mouth shut about our little camping excursion,” Reece said sternly.

  The nurse came in and told them:

  “You need to run along now. It’s time for his bath.”

  They left the room and had gone halfway down the hallway when Haisley grabbed Reece’s bad arm and yanked him into an empty patient room.

>   “What the hell are you doing? That’s my bad arm,” he cried.

  Haisley looked over at him from his position at the door. He had it cracked and was peeking out. He turned back with his index finger to his lips.

  “It’s Cox. He just got off the elevator, heading this way,” Haisley said darkly. “He just went into Mobley’s room. Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Crystal sat in the kitchen of the villa, suspicious of the call by Reece. “Hey, little girl,” Vinton said, coming around the corner. “You ready to take a trip with me?”

  “Sure. Papa, when are we heading down to South America?”

  “We aren’t.”

  “What do you mean? I thought that’s what you and Shanks had planned. You’ve been spending all your time getting that plane ready to haul the paintings out of the country.”

  “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t trust Shanks anymore. I’ve made other plans for us.”

  “What other plans?” Crystal asked.

  “We’re almost done here. We’ve got a flight to freedom on Friday afternoon,” Vinton said, taking her into his arms. She hugged him back at first and then grew uncomfortable as he tightened his grip the way you would with a lover. She wanted to tell him to stop, but thought better of it. On one level she’d spent much of her life trying to gain his love and acceptance, but on another he scared the living hell out of her.

  She broke loose from his grip, but he held onto her at arm’s length. He was acting weirder than his usual unpredictable self. She needed him to get away and she figured at some point she’d strike out on her own, but now wasn’t the time. Crystal had to play along.

  “I’ve got a favor to ask.”

  “What’s that? she said in a meek voice.

  “I need you to take care of Reece Culver. He’s been snooping around Sam’s place, and we don’t need any loose ends biting us.”

  “It’s interesting you bring Reece up, Papa. I have a ski date with him tomorrow morning, and then I thought I’d bring him back here for the night. I can take care of the loose end then,” Crystal said with a devious smile.