21 Hours

by Dustin Stevens

  "The impact woke O, though he was still pretty drunk. The boy's father heard what happened and came running down, saw O staggering around. They took one whiff and figured out he was drunk. By the time the cops got there, they swore they'd watched the entire thing from the front steps as they waved their son off for the morning."

  Lex sniffed and raised her eyes. Her face was red and puffy, glistening with tears. My mother continued to grind her nails into my flesh, the entire group hanging on every word.

  "The judge gave O five years for vehicular manslaughter. He would have gotten less, but since he was drunk and the guy's dad was an attorney, he got the higher end of the sentence. O never once said a word to anybody that he wasn't the one driving that morning. He swore me to secrecy and said he'd lie and tell everyone he did it anyway. Shortly thereafter, he went to prison and I went off to college and met Ricky."

  She leveled her gaze on the Borden’s. "And that's why he's here now. He gave up his life for me, and I knew he'd give up his life for Annie. None of this is his fault. It's mine."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Lex covered her face with her hands. She remained stone still for a few moments before her shoulders started to wrack with silent sobs. After several of these, she broke into violent crying that rang through the hallway. Across from us the Borden's glanced at each other and retreated into the room. My mother moved forward and wrapped herself around my sister, who remained rigid before hugging her back.

  Within seconds, they were both sobbing. The floodgates were open, from the situation we now faced and the pain that we had all locked away long ago.

  A small ripple of emotion passed through me, replaced just as fast in my mind by an image of Annie. There would be time for this later. Right now I had a task to complete and I had nine and a half hours to do it.

  I motioned with my chin towards the front door to Watts. She began to drift that way as I put an arm around Lex and my mother and pulled them tight for a moment. I kissed the top of both their heads and whispered, "I'll be back."

  Each of them nodded, but said nothing. They were crying too hard to speak.

  I took off back down the hallway in a quick march, Watts moving fast to keep in stride. We said nothing until we cleared the ICU. Once our boots found the tile of the front foyer I said, "I need to hang on to this money."

  It wasn’t an order, but it definitely wasn't a question.

  Watts picked up on the message and cast a sideways glance to me. "That money's technically evidence in a crime."

  "It technically belongs to my sister," I countered. I knew we were both right, though hers trumped mine by quite a bit. I just hoped she'd be willing to overlook it.

  We walked out through the front door to the BMW still sitting in the loading zone, caution light affixed to the roof. She put her hands back on her hips and said, "All that she just said in there..."

  I looked at her, knowing she was thinking she'd just been handed a full confession. Hopefully she'd be willing to overlook that for the next few hours as well. "I don't suppose there's any way you can un-hear that can you?"

  Watts waved a hand at me. "That's not what I meant. Did you really go to prison to protect your sister?"

  I gave her one long look before turning away, saying nothing.

  She studied me as if debating something before nodding her head. "Where are you going?"

  Telling her where I was headed was the last thing I wanted to do. I might not have been guilty the first time I went to prison, but I'd already done some things tonight that would land me back there. More were bound to come.

  At the same time, I was asking her to overlook a full confession and let me walk away with a giant bag of evidence. "Cincinnati."

  She raised a questioning eyebrow. "What's in Cincinnati?"

  I sighed and lifted my gaze back to her. At this point, I had nothing more than a hunch and a prayer. "I don't know. I talked to someone earlier that told me I might find what I'm looking for down there."

  The other eyebrow rose to form a matching set.

  "I know it's vague and it sounds like I'm hiding things, and I probably am. The information I got came from some very off-the-record conversations with some people I wish I'd never met. I don't know how accurate it is, but it's all I've got. I have to try."

  Watts nodded her head, comprehension sliding over her. "The old Brothers-Behind-Bars network."

  "Those men were never my brothers," I replied.

  And I meant it.

  "How big is it? Should I be riding shotgun?" she asked. "Or better yet, should I leave you here and go check it out myself?"

  I didn't want to tell her about Merric's phone still locked in my truck and I damned sure didn't want her showing up down there in full-on cop mode. Something told me an operation like this had a fail-safe in case the police showed up. She went in through the front door; the kids disappeared out the back.

  Again though, I couldn't very well just tell her that.

  "I truly don't know. If it is something, it should be you. If it's not, you should be here working the pavements, not wasting four hours on a round trip."

  Watts stood motionless for several more moments, mulling it over. She knew as well as I that she had no further leads in Columbus. The only thing she had to work with was standing in the ICU crying her eyes out. At the same time, following one crazy hunch to Cincinnati wasn't a very efficient use of her time.

  She pulled a hand from her hip and fished a business card from her jacket pocket. She held it between her index and middle finger and extended it to me, the same as she had to Lex hours before. "You call me if you find anything. And I mean anything."

  "Yes ma'am," I said, accepting the card.

  "I can have Cincy PD there in five minutes flat. Do not do anything stupid and go charging in somewhere like, well, a cowboy on a horse."

  I smirked. These Midwesterners really loved that imagery for some reason. "I won't."

  She jerked her head towards the bag in my hand. "I'm inclined to hang on to the money just to make sure of that, but I won't. You might need it."

  "Thank you," I whispered. She was going out on a limb for me. I had no idea why, but I wasn't about to question it. I nodded once more to her and headed towards my truck.

  Behind me I heard her softly say good luck. I didn’t turn to respond, only offering a small wave of my hand as I strode away into the night.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I put Merric's cell phone on the dashboard and stared at it all the way from Columbus to Lebanon, just north of Cincinnati. With the truck set on cruise control I alternated glances between the clock on the dash and the phone. The clock inched on towards five a.m., ratcheting up the pressure inside of me. There was just eight hours to go. Something had to happen fast. The phone sat beside it, reminding me I wasn't quite sure what that something was.

  I worked at my right index fingernail for twenty minutes as I rolled into the northern suburbs of Cincinnati, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth. It wasn't as good as a cup of coffee, but I was already so wired it was probably better for me at the moment. The first signs of morning traffic were starting to dot the highway as I pushed the truck off the right shoulder and followed an exit onto Kings Mill Road.

  The truck whined as I turned into a Shell station parking lot and grabbed up the phone from the dash. Outside a single man in jeans and ball cap filled his oversized Dodge pickup with gas, paying me no mind. Otherwise there were no signs of life around, despite blinding lights bathing everything in a fluorescent glow.

  I flipped the phone open and saw there were six missed calls. All from the same number, all matching the one I'd noticed before with the 513 area code. That was a good sign.

  Using my thumb I cleared the screen and went back to the text message menu. There were still only three there. The first was nothing, a simple greeting. The third was a farewell. The second one was what I was after, a confirmation of a time and place. Pier Twelve, nine a.m.
/>   That was still four hours away, and a worst case scenario. If I could find whoever this was, maybe I could make a deal long before it came to that. At the very least I could figure out if Annie was even down here. I didn't have time to waste, certainly not four hours to catch a boat that might have God-knows-what loaded aboard it.

  I took a deep breath and watched as the lone customer climbed into his truck and drove away. The muffler roared as he swung out onto the road, announcing for the world that he was a big man with a truck.

  The corner of my mouth curled in a smirk before I even realized it.

  Going back to the phone, I pulled up the call log and paused. I stared down at the same number listed several times in succession and practiced my best Gaelic accent. It sounded like shit. I could only hope whoever it was wouldn't notice. I pressed the call button and held the phone to my ear.

  It rang only once before someone snapped it up. The voice was deep and clearly pissed. "Where the fuck have you been?"

  These guys were business partners. I knew from Troy that Merric was lower on the totem pole, but not a complete nobody in the infrastructure. "It's Saturday night, where the hell do you think I've been?"

  I spat the words out in my best accent, wincing and holding my breath.

  "What the hell's wrong with your voice?" the man snapped.

  Dammit. I kept the accent in place and went with it. I was out of options. "I've got a cold, what are you, my mother?"

  The man paused for several seconds. "What's the name of your right hand man?"

  "What?" I snapped, my voice almost betraying me. The question was genuinely my own and slid out before I realized I was asking it. No choice but to keep playing the angle. "What kind of shite is this? You're testing me now?"

  "Answer the question," the man breathed back.

  "Vincent. His name is Vincent and he's sitting right here, would you like to talk to him?" I filled my voice with incredulity, almost shouting in the empty parking lot.

  The line was silent for several long seconds. I held my breath and prayed I hadn't overplayed my hand.

  "Look man, you disappeared all night and when you finally call you sound like some dick giving me a fake accent, so don't go running your mouth to me!"

  I was on thin ice, but at least I was still on ice. "Sorry," I mumbled. "Long ass night."

  "That's better," the man replied. His voice wasn't quite as deep as Ving Rhames's back at Troy's, but it had a lot more bravado to it. This was clearly someone used to getting their way. "Everything good for this morning?"

  So that's why he was calling. This was my opening. If I was going to make a move, this had to be it. "Actually, I've got a couple more for you."

  Silence.

  I held my breath for several long seconds, staring hard through the front windshield. Outside, I could see the dark outlines of roller coasters across the street at the King's Island amusement park against the morning sky, all standing silent.

  "You shitting me? It's already five o'clock man, the unit is loaded. You know I don't like last second deliveries."

  He wasn't yelling, but his voice was hard.

  "You'll want these," I said, my voice trying to convey confidence despite it fleeing from me by the second. "And my guys are already en route. They'll be there shortly to make the delivery."

  Again, silence.

  "I don't like this, man. I told you about this before. Switching the orders at the last second is asking for trouble."

  "This is the last time, I swear. The guys grabbed a group I wasn't expecting, so I thought I'd add them on. Free of charge," I had no idea what I was doing. Hell, I didn't even know who I was talking to. The odds of me seeing tomorrow were going down by the second.

  Oddly enough, I didn't care.

  "Don't tell me they're free like you're doing me some damn favor," the man said. "You know that's not how this arrangement works. I tell you to get me a load, you get me as many as you can."

  I really didn't like whoever was on the other end of this call. It would be better for both of us if we never met.

  "Well, I got some more," I said, trying hard to maintain the adopted accent through gritted teeth. "You want them or not?"

  "Course I want 'em!" the man snapped. "If your boys are here in the next hour, just bring them by the shop. If not, take them straight on over to the dock."

  Here it was, the moment of truth. I didn't want to go anywhere near this guy's shop, which probably looked something like Troy's place from earlier. At the same time, I couldn't afford to wait four more hours. "They'll be there in a few minutes. What's the address again?"

  "Man, who the hell is this!?" the man bellowed. "Merric, the real Merric, knows damn well where my shop is!"

  Shit.

  I'd managed to play it off the first time, I had to hope for another miracle. "I know where the damn shop is! It's on the waterfront! I just asked for the street address. I gave my guys a GPS, not a damn road map. This isn't 1985 anymore!"

  The line went dead. I waited several seconds before flinging the phone against the passenger door and going inside to get another cup of coffee. It looked like I had a much longer morning ahead of me than I anticipated.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It was nudging six o'clock by the time I found Pier Twelve. It was tucked along the riverfront just beneath the Brent Spence Bridge, the cantilever structure carrying Interstate’s 71 and 75 into Kentucky. Out to the left sat Paul Brown Stadium and Great American Ballpark, home to the Bengals and Reds respectively. Both sat empty and resting along the river like bullfrogs brooding in the morning half-flight.

  I was down to eight hours and counting. Part of me wanted to call Watts and see if she'd gotten anywhere in Columbus, but the more prudent part of me staved off the idea. If she had anything, there was an entire police force to back her up. If she didn't, she might be tempted to come join me.

  A thin grey light blanketed the world as I pointed my truck down Pier Twelve. I hadn't spent much time around water in my day, but it looked pretty close to what I'd always expected a dock to look like. It was over a hundred yards wide at the base, made entirely of concrete. A few warehouses lined the outer edges while a series of smaller buildings filled in the gaps between them and dotted the landscape through the middle. Industrial sized dumpsters sat in haphazard patterns around the grounds and a few overhead cranes stood silent, their hooks pointing down. A couple of gas pumps were interspersed as well.

  The entire scene looked like it could use a good cleaning and a coat of paint.

  The wide base extended out about eighty yards before giving way to a series of long docks. Also made of concrete, they jutted out into the Ohio River like fingers from a palm. All of them were lined with metal shipping containers stacked in even rows. I couldn't see any forklifts around, but knew they must be close by.

  I pulled the truck about halfway down the pier and backed it up against a dumpster along the far left side. At six o'clock on a Sunday morning the docks were dead, a fact I hoped to use to my advantage. One quick glance around revealed there was no way I could check every container by hand in the next few hours, and that was assuming there was no surveillance around to wonder why some cowboy was walking around banging on doors. My best bet was to wait for movement and hope it pointed me in the right direction.

  My right hand reached into the box of mini donuts on the bench seat beside me, grabbing two and cramming them into my mouth. After not eating for almost thirty-six hours, the chocolate covered pastries tasted divine. A few swigs of the extra large coffee resting between my legs helped them go down. As soon as they were swallowed, I repeated the process until both containers were empty.

  A dull buzzing filled the truck, setting my nerves on edge. I remembered Merric's cell phone was buried somewhere inside the littered cabin and dove down to the opposite floorboard. With my right hand I tossed aside mounds of cups and wrappers until I found the phone resting against a knotted pair of bungee cords.

  I
thumbed it open to see the same number I'd just spoken to looking up at me. This was going to go one of two ways fast. I stared at it for a moment as it continued to vibrate against my palm before exhaling and flipping it open. I was going to continue playing Merric and hope for the best.

  "Yeah?" I let annoyance show. Nobody hangs up on Merric and take forty-five minutes to call back.

  "Who the hell is this?" the same heavy voice demanded.

  "What? Who the hell do you think this is? You called me, remember?"

  "No, I called Merric," the voice snapped. "I asked who the hell you are."

  I made a pained sound into the phone. This was not good. Part of me was already starting to wish I'd tossed the phone in the trash back at the Shell station. "What do you mean who am I? I'm Merric, you idiot."

  "Fuck you!" the man screamed. "Merric's dead, and so are you when I get to you."

  The knot of barbed wire in my stomach expanded through my chest and into my throat. Not only had I not learned a damn thing about where Annie was, I had possibly outed myself as Merric's killer to his business partner.

  My eyes rolled to the glove compartment, my thoughts on the Luger stashed away in there.

  I dropped the accent. There was no point in it anymore. "I didn't kill him," I said. Even I had a hard time believing the words as they left my mouth. There was no way he was going to believe me.

  "Bullshit," the man said. "You know Vincent, you have his phone, and you answer with a piss poor imitation of him."

  True on all points. I was already starting to wish I'd called Watts on this. "Yeah, I went to see him last night and yeah, I met Vincent. But I didn't kill anybody. They were already like that when I got to them."

  "Man, you lying bitch, who the hell do you think you're talking to?" Worse than thinking I'd killed his partner, he now felt disrespected. This was getting worse by the second.