Vengeance: A Reece Culver Thriller - Book 1

by Bryan Koepke

  Something metallic caught his eye near the knob of the basement door. He felt the pull of intrigue and slid in his sock covered feet across the smooth hardwood floor. She’d left the key in the knob. Reece pulled gently on the door. It opened, and he went down the stairway, pulling the door shut behind. He hoped Crystal would stay asleep long enough for him to find out why she’d kept the room under lock and key.

  Reece stepped off the bottom step into a large carpeted room. He flipped on the light switch, illuminating a finished basement. A large antique pool table occupied the center, and the exterior walls were covered in an assortment of both black and white and colored photographs. He started near the stairs and stopped at each photo, observing Crystal’s family history.

  It was chilly down there, and he slid his hand into the pocket of his blue jeans. He was pleased to find that he’d brought his cell phone. Reece gazed at a picture showing a face that very much resembled the description of the man who’d beaten his father on the rooftop of the apartment building several years before his death. The man was standing with his arm around a girl who had long red hair. It was Vinton Blackwell and his stepdaughter Crystal. He went to the next picture and recognized the same man a few years older standing next to Owen Roberts and the same girl.

  Reece pulled out his cell phone and typed a text to Haisley.

  “I’m in the basement. She’s still in bed. There’s a photo history of Shanks and Blackwell down here. Be ready to move. I’m going to break the news to her.” He pressed send and saw only two bars of reception on the phone. He could only hope the text message reached Haisley.

  He advanced to a desk in the corner with several envelopes pilled on top of one another. The top envelope contained a bunch of old receipts and bills. Reece scanned through the scraps of paper and other items on the desk. He found a crisp white envelope unlike any of the others. He peeled open the gold clasp and reached inside. He pulled out a stack of passports from two different countries in South America and three others in Europe. Each had the name Vinton James Blackwell. Reece rifled through the drawers of the desk and found a folded-up map of North and South America with a line running from Vail to Uruguay. Reece paged through the passports and noted that the two for South America were new.

  He pulled his cell phone out and sent Haisley another text.

  “Found maps and passports in Blackwell’s name for both Ecuador and Uruguay. Check Eagle Vail airport. Is this what Shanks is up to?”

  *

  Up in her bedroom, Crystal slid her hand across the cold cotton mattress in search of Reece’s warm body. He was gone. Startled, she opened her eyes and sat up, blinking as she adjusted to the dark. Stumbling through the night, she made her way into the bathroom, feeling the effects of the night’s wine. She ran both hands through her hair and smiled at the pleasant memory. If her PI had proved to be a bust otherwise, at least he could deliver in bed.

  Through the small bathroom window she saw light outside. Crystal rose from the toilet, reached to flush, and then decided against it. What’s he up to? She pulled back the bathroom window curtain and looked out toward the forest. The ground below was dark except for a sharp wedge of light shining outward from the basement.

  Back in the bedroom, Crystal glanced down at the red iridescent 5:07 on the clock-radio beside her bed. From her closet she pulled out a fresh pair of jeans, a shirt, and her favorite barn coat. As she dressed, she mulled over what she was going to do about Reece. They’d had so much fun the night before, but now it was time for a different kind of fun.

  *

  Down in the basement, the thought of Vinton Blackwell and Sam Shanks getting away with their stolen cache of art masterpieces made Reece’s stomach turn. He had to finish up down here. His luck with Crystal could change at any minute. She was volatile, just like her stepfather.

  He flipped open the phone and typed out another message.

  “Haisley – you’ve got to get to the airport and stop Shanks and Blackwell. They’re headed to South America.”

  Reece sent the text and put the cell phone on silent mode. He couldn’t risk the noise it would make if Haisley decided to call him back. His shoulder throbbed and he thought about his pills, but knew he needed to stay sharp. He moved along the wall, eyeing the last few photos taken at what looked much like the casino farm he’d visited with Haisley in Tulsa. All of this would be good evidence later on—if there was a later.

  Reece heard a noise from overhead and raced to flip off the light switch. He stood motionless in the dark basement, thinking about escape, but he couldn’t go yet. He needed a confession. It was vital for Crystal to realize how Blackwell had been playing her and come willingly.

  Reece had mounted the first few steps on his way back up the basement stairs when the basement light came on, and the door above flew open. Crystal raced down the stairway toward him with a revolver pointed at his chest.

  “You bastard. Why did you have to ruin it? What are you doing down here?” Crystal screamed as she pulled back on the hammer, cocking it. Reece held out his hand to say stop. She was barreling down the stairs toward him. He retreated backward into the basement and almost tripped off the last step.

  “We were having so much fun, and now you had to come here snooping, and break my trust. You’re just like all the others,” she shouted.

  Crystal kept backing him up, pointing the gun with a mixture of anger and fear in her eyes. She looked disappointed, but at the same time had the set face of a killer. It was a face he’d seen before.

  “Get up onto the pool table. Lie down, legs out,” Crystal demanded.

  Reece was watching her closely, and calculated if he should try a grab for the gun.

  “Do it or I’ll shoot you right now, you bastard.”

  He hopped up onto the pool table, and as he lay back, he felt the cold slate press against his flesh. He watched her open a cupboard on the far wall and take out a plastic bag. She fetched several lengths of rope, each with a loop on one end. It was obvious that she had premeditated her plan before having him over, and it sent chills down his spine. She really was the black widow she appeared to be. Haisley was right.

  He’d miscalculated. She was deadlier than he’d imagined. She spun around with the gun and jabbed it toward him, as if to say, lie back down. With the rope in one hand she roughly looped it around his right hand and cinched it tight. He struggled to pull back against the rope as she ducked underneath the pool table, tying down the other end. The thought of driving his fist into her head when she came up occurred to him, but he didn’t have enough slack. Reece focused, fighting the pain in his shoulder. He needed his wits.

  Crystal worked her way around his body, poking the gun toward him each time he sat up from his prone position. She looked evil, like a changed woman. He remembered about the newspaper clippings he’d found in the library. His thoughts turned to the file his friend Natalie from the Jeffco Sheriffs had given him, and all the other men Crystal had killed. She tied his feet in a fashion similar to his arms, running the ropes to the legs of the pool table.

  He yanked against his right wrist, trying to buy some slack. As Crystal held the gun in her left hand, she reached down to slip the loop over his left wrist. She shoved the gun into her waistband. He could feel his torn rotator cuff stretching as she pulled it outward and wrapped the other end around one of the metal support poles that rose from the basement floor to the wooden joist that spanned the ceiling.

  She savagely pulled his wounded left arm, straightening it out.

  “Aaaaahhh!” he screamed.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?” Crystal said coldly.

  Reece chastised himself for not calling for help. He’d sent three messages to Haisley about his findings and going to stop Shanks, but he’d screwed up not calling in the calvary.

  “Why are you doing this, Crystal? Didn’t you enjoy yourself last night? I thought we had something. A connection,” he said, trying to reason with her.

  “You’re
in the way, Reece. You don’t fit our plans.”

  Crystal walked back to the cupboard where she’d found the ropes. He watched her retrieve a cardboard box with the words “Veterinary Supplies” stenciled across it in large black letters. He wondered what the box contained and knew it wouldn’t be good. Reece once again pulled against the rope, but all he ended up doing is burning the skin on his right wrist.

  Crystal set the box next to his left foot and pulled out a large glass syringe. Reece heard the ring of a phone in the upstairs kitchen, praying she’d run to answer it. Crystal heard it too and set a clear plastic box down onto the green felt.

  “Don’t move,” she ordered, then ran up the stairs. She began talking on the phone and Reece could hear her muffled voice. While she was gone, he seized the chance to struggle vigorously against the ropes. He managed to pull some free slack with his right arm. He strained hard against the rope and jabbed his fingers into his pocket. He could feel his cell phone buried against his thigh. Reece pulled and twisted his body, trying to gain more slack in the rope. His right wrist ached from the rope abrading it. Reaching farther, he finally touched the phone with his middle finger and concentrated on easing it back until it dropped out of his pocket and onto the pool table. He rapidly hit the keys, writing a text, and hit send.

  Reece heard footsteps thudding across the ceiling. Crystal was coming toward the basement door. He shoved the phone under his right buttock and lay back, staring at the ceiling.

  At the top of the stairs he heard Crystal say:

  “Sounds good, Papa.”

  Reece rolled toward the staircase and in doing so felt a shot of pain course through his left shoulder. He could see her coming down the stairs, still talking on the cordless phone.

  “Was that Vinton Blackwell on the phone?” Reece asked.

  “No, it was your father calling to ask if you’re still as stupid as you were when he was alive,” Crystal said nastily.

  She was angry now, and Reece wondered what Vinton had said to her. She climbed up onto the pool table. He thought about fighting back, but the slack he’d created in the rope wasn’t enough to allow him to grab her throat. Crystal straddled him, sitting on his pelvis. The sexual connotations of the position reminded him bizarrely of the night before, but she looked nothing like the person he’d sexed. Her face was screwed up and her eyes were sharp and focused like a predator’s.

  She reached back toward his left shin and opened the clear plastic case. Crystal took out a vial of fluid and a syringe, then pulled on a pair of yellow latex gloves. Reece wondered if the bottle contained cyanide. He knew it was lethal enough to penetrate the skin and kill a person. That explained the gloves. If it was, she’d done her homework.

  She poked the needle through the rubber opening on the clear glass bottle and pulled back on the plunger, drawing the liquid into the syringe.

  “Did Vinton tell you he murdered your father Owen in cold blood,” Reece asked, playing for time.

  Crystal glared at him and continued preparing the syringe.

  “You know what happened when your mother disappeared, don’t you? Owen made a deal with the devil to get rid of his life-long gambling debts to Shanks,” Reece added, hoping to shake her.

  “Shut up. I tried to love you just like all the others, but you betrayed me. The only man who’s ever loved me is Papa. My father Owen abused me. He abused my mother. He deserved to die,” Crystal muttered.

  She held the syringe in her hand and pointed it down toward his chest. Reece pulled against his feet, trying to gain some leverage so he could flip her off. He wasn’t going to meet his end like this.

  “It’s no use trying to struggle, Reece. This will all be over for you very soon,” Crystal said in a deep, evil voice.

  “It was a trade, Crystal. Vinton doesn’t love you at all. I’m sure he abused you too. He’s been using you all these years to stay one step ahead of the FBI.”

  That time he hit the mark. Crystal snorted, looking hurt. She set the bottle down by his foot, frowned at Reece, and held the needle straight up into the air.

  “Crystal, your mother ran off with Vinton Blackwell in 1981. She met him at a Rolling Stones concert,” Reece said in a soft voice.

  “No, that’s not true, my mother would never do anything like that. She was a good woman,” Crystal said, on the verge of tears.

  “Vinton got your mother pregnant and left her on the street in California. It was Owen who took her back. It was Owen who raised you as his own daughter until your mother disappeared.”

  Crystal’s look changed and she seemed to be considering this scenario. He hoped she’d believe him and cut him loose. She set the syringe down on the pool table near the side rail, put both hands down on his waist and leaned forward, staring into his eyes. She slid her hands down onto the pool table with her wrists against his hips. Her hands were getting too close to the phone, and he tried to shift his hips to block them.

  Crystal’s lips quivered and Reece wasn’t sure what she was thinking, but he knew he was getting to her. Then her hand hit exactly what he didn’t want her to find.

  “What’s this?” she said, holding his phone up and poking at the buttons. “You fucker, you’ve been sending text messages.”

  She cocked her arm and hurled the phone across the room. It hit the wall and he could hear it shatter.

  “Crystal,” a voice yelled down the stairs from the kitchen above.

  Chapter Eighty-Seven

  Haisley held his phone to his ear and ran out the front entrance of his hotel.

  “I hope you guys block off the airport before they get away.”

  “Even if the plane gets airborne, they’ll be able to stop it. Ever since nine eleven the air force has made a habit of scrambling F-16’s to escort planes down,” Detective Hughes said. “I just hope your boy Culver is okay. Whose idea was it to send him to that villa alone?”

  “It was his damn fool idea. I tried to stop him, but he insisted,” Haisley said. “Once he gets an idea in his thick head, there’s no stopping him.”

  “Okay, Averton, we’ve got eyes on the plane out here at the airport. One of my guys is on the far end of the ramp with binoculars on that Airbus at the east end of the airport. It’s got to be the one we’re after. There are no markings on it other than the tail number. We’ve got a call into the FAA to see who it’s registered to, but we’re also playing this close to our chest so we don’t tip off the FBI.”

  “Don’t let that happen. Stop that plane. Hey, I just got a text from Reece. They’re headed to South America.”

  “Will do,” Hughes said, ending the call.

  Haisley pulled his handheld VHF radio out of his police-issue backpack and listened to the frequency for Eagle Vail airport ground control. A male voice on the radio announced:

  “Eagle Vail ground, this is November 768 bravo. We’d like to taxi from hangar six to the ramp.”

  “768 bravo, taxi to the west end of the ramp and hold.”

  “Eagle Vail ground, 768 bravo taxi to the west end and hold,” the pilot said, reading back the clearance.

  “It sounds like Shanks is on the move. I hope Hughes makes it there in time to catch them,” Haisley murmured out loud.

  He barreled down Highway 24 and cut sharply onto the gravel road that led to Vinton Blackwell’s villa. After a few hundred yards he slowed his rental car and pulled off to the side. Haisley thought about what to do next and checked his phone for cell reception. Fine specks of snow dotted the windshield of the car and he hoped the plane might have to return to the ramp to de ice, but then thought about who was flying it and doubted that would be the case.

  Haisley pulled out his GPS and figured he was still a couple of miles shy of the villa. He continued down the gravel road, hoping that Reece was still in one piece. Driving slowly around a curve, he spotted, a half-mile away, a black Range Rover parked in the driveway behind a bright red Mercedes.

  “I guess it’s time to go on in.”

 
; Chapter Eighty-Eight

  “Papa, down here,” Crystal yelled.

  She rolled off of the table and hopped down to the floor. At the same time Vinton Blackwell came down the basement stairs. His face matched those in the photos Reece had seen earlier, with the same green eyes that Crystal had. This was the man who was responsible for his father’s beating and murder. Rage welled up inside him, a hatred more overwhelming than anything he’d ever felt. He wanted to fling himself off the table and strangle Blackwell with his bare hands.

  Instead Reece once again stretched his right arm out toward the edge of the pool table. Hearing a new sound, he worked his wrist back and forth, scraping the rope against the underside. He hoped the rough edge of the table would cut through.

  Crystal ran to her stepfather with her arms out and hugged him with the same intensity she’d used to hug Reece the night before. It was all too weird. It seemed demented to Reece, and he hoped for his sake he’d gotten through to her.

  “We’ll have time for hugs later, Crystal. Let’s put an end to this scum bag, so we can get to the airport,” Blackwell said.

  “Don’t you want to tell her what you did with her mother?” Reece blurted out, still hoping to hit home with Crystal.

  “She’s going to see her mother later this week, Culver,” Blackwell said, picking up the gun from the pool table. He flipped open the cylinder and studied the number of bullets, then snapped the cylinder closed and pointed the gun at Reece.

  “She knows you’re her real father. She knows you killed Owen Roberts to cover your tracks,” Reece said, knowing he might be speaking his last words.

  Blackwell held the gun out at him. For no good reason Reece noticed the glossed over film on Blackwell’s left eye. He remembered his father Al describing it to him when he’d visited the hospital after the beating. That clouded green eye looking down at him on the rooftop in East St. Louis just before he’d lost consciousness. Vinton pulled the hammer of the revolver back and squeezed the trigger.