The Piper (CASMIRC Book 2)

by Ben Miller

  As if in answer to his prophecy, Reilly heard the doorknob slowly turn. What little power he had remaining in his muscles caused them to tense. He hadn’t yet fully formed his plan to counter-attack, and no epiphany came to him in this instant. The door opened and Reilly thought he recognized the silhouette, but it didn’t make any sense. When the Piper flicked on the light, and Reilly’s presumption was confirmed, his confusion amplified tenfold.

  73

  The scene outside the Richmond courthouse seemed stolen from a Godzilla movie: random fearful squeals echoed off the surrounding buildings; an occasional frantic bystander ran hurriedly across the concrete landscape; and myriad flashing emergency lights from police vehicles and ambulances could provoke some poor seizure-prone fool to break into convulsions at any minute. Perhaps under different circumstances, Corinne O’Loughlin could find the humor in it. Right now, however, she contributed to the chaos by sprinting from the main front entrance to the scene of the shooting around the side of the building.

  She couldn’t get within twenty yards of the action. Police and yellow tape had secured the perimeter. She could see emergency medical personnel loading a stretcher into the back of an ambulance. She caught a glimpse of Victor Upshall’s profile before they closed the back doors. She was pretty sure she caught him dropping an f-bomb to the technicians trying to save his life.

  “What happened?” she asked the officer who had prevented her further passing.

  “I can’t say, ma’am,” he answered without making eye contact. “I need you to back away please.”

  She had been in the middle of an interview with the Cottrell family inside the courthouse when she received a flurry of text messages about the shootings outside. Apparently it had been broadcast live on TV, as several cameras were rolling when the shots were fired. She had excused herself from the Cottrells and rushed outside to this pandemonium, only to find that her information had arrived on about a five-minute delay. They had already whisked Randall away.

  She walked along the border created by the yellow tape to see if she could get a closer look at the scene. She could see blood on the sidewalk. A lot of blood. Randall’s blood.

  She felt sick. In the process of developing the story of the Playground Predator, and in conspiring with Randall against Victor Upshall, she had gained a certain appreciation for him. He did not embody evil for her like he did for most other people. She felt a modicum of sympathy for him, and most of the time she enjoyed her interactions with him. He had been incredibly forthright with her and provided substantial insight into his crimes and his personal struggles. She had prepared herself to secretly root for him during his trial. Not for acquittal, because he had killed six innocent people, but for a life sentence rather than the death penalty. She found the world much more interesting with Randall Franklin in it.

  She called Reilly, but it went straight to voicemail. Her desperate disappointment startled her. She realized she did not simply want to talk to him—she needed to talk to him. She couldn’t remember yearning for the comfort of another quite in this way ever before in her life. Despite how unnatural it felt, she tried not to dispel it. She had grown to accept that she was falling in love with Heath Reilly.

  Her phone rang. Thank God, she thought, expecting Reilly’s name to appear on her display. Her disappointment doubled when she saw the name, but she answered the call anyway.

  “Hi, Jack.”

  “Hey, are you in Richmond?” He sounded as anxious as she felt.

  “I am. I’m here. It’s nuts.” Tears began to well in her eyes. Even though she had numerous conflicts with Jackson Byrne in the past, including the blow-up last night, she suddenly felt a kinship with him over Randall. “They shot him in the head, Jack.”

  “Who?” he pressed. “Who did?”

  “I don’t know. I just now got on the scene.”

  “Look around. What do you see? Is there some sort of vantage point? Some place a shooter could hide?”

  She turned her back to the courthouse and looked across the street. She was aghast at the obviousness of the structure in front of her. “A four-story parking garage. Right across the street.”

  “That’s gotta be it,” Jack confirmed.

  Corinne began walking toward the municipal garage. “They have the exit barricaded.”

  “Good,” Jack said, “but the shooter is probably already gone.”

  Corinne, focused on the action across the street, bumped into an equally oblivious woman wandering the yard in front of the courthouse. “Sorry,” she said as she turned to look at the woman. It was Amy Coulter.

  “Hey,” Amy said flatly, clearly recognizing Corinne.

  “Hey,” Corinne replied, pulling the phone further down on her chin.

  “Who’s that?” Jack asked on the other end, but Corinne ignored him.

  Amy pulled a piece of matted hair from her mouth. “Have you seen my husband?”

  Corinne thought for a moment before responding. She remembered the nauseated look on Carl Coulter’s face the last time she saw him. “I saw him leave the courtroom. Have you checked the bathroom inside?”

  “No,” Amy replied, and she walked away in the direction of the courthouse’s main entrance.

  Corinne put the phone back to her mouth. “I’m gonna go, Jack. I need to talk to some people around here.”

  “OK. Keep me posted, OK?” Jack replied. Before she could hang up, she heard him shout “Corinne!” on the other end.

  “Yes?”

  “I know some people at VCU Hospital. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

  Finally a tear trickled down her cheek. “Thanks, Jack.”

  She looked at her phone for a few seconds after disconnecting with Jack. She wanted it to ring, and she wanted it to be Reilly. She willed it to ring. Instead a new text message came through, from Eleanor Branford, hit-and-run victim Allison Branford’s mother. It read:

  They killed the wrong guy.

  74

  Dana Dellahunt sighed in disappointment. She ambled across the tile floor and sat down on top of the toilet lid, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped in the middle around the Taser. “How did you get the hood off?”

  Heath Reilly did not respond. Rendered speechless, he struggled to comprehend the situation. Dana had attacked him with the Taser. Dana was the Piper.

  Dana calmly leaned forward and peered over the edge of the tub. She moved the Taser solely to her right hand and used her left to reach into the tub. She tugged on the black hood that had fallen beneath Reilly. He had to lift one butt cheek for her to pull it out, and he did so willingly. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t see me,” Dana said. “And maybe you would have trouble putting all the pieces together. And maybe you wouldn’t want to believe it was me.”

  Reilly met her eyes sharply. Despite his impotent position, he wanted to try to exert some power in the interaction. “You’re the Piper.”

  She opened her palms up in a shrug of confession.

  “Where are the babies?” Reilly demanded.

  She pursed her lips, contemplating how much to divulge. Part of Reilly hoped she wouldn’t answer, as this might indicate that she feared him in some way. If she were to tell him everything, it could indicate she had already developed a plan to eliminate him, making his depth of knowledge irrelevant.

  “They’re in a better place,” she said finally.

  “Oh, God, Dana,” Reilly grunted, his head falling to his chest.

  “No—not, like, heaven. They’re not dead,” she explained.

  “Well where are they?” Reilly pushed on, his curiosity overtaking his sense of self-preservation.

  Dana squinted, deciding how to answer. “I’d say it’s a long story.”

  Reilly glanced down at his body lying weakly in the tub. “Looks like I’ve got time.”

  Dana looked up at the ceiling light, presumably seeking divine advice on what to tell him. “About three years ago, right before Mom died, I was worki
ng with this couple, in my old job, working for my old agency. They were so sweet, and kind, and loving, and they just wanted a baby. I got them lined up with this pregnant girl who would give them her baby. They supported her—financially—through the pregnancy. Then, right before she gave birth, she disappeared. I eventually tracked her down and found out she had given the baby to another couple—apparently they offered a higher bid. She had strung along a couple of other families too. It was heartbreaking to see this couple go through this. It sucked.”

  She finally broke her trance on the dome above her and briefly met Reilly’s eyes before she looked down at her feet. “Then my mom died and I came home. Mom and Dad left me this house and not much else. I was sad and I was pissed. Pissed at the little shit who sold her baby like it was a used car. Pissed at the world that there were so many people—good, kind-hearted people—who wanted kids but couldn’t have them. So I decided I would do something about it—I would help couples like the Newkirks. And help myself in the process.”

  “So you tracked down the single mothers who thought about adoption, who came to you for help, but then decided to keep their babies instead. And you attacked them and took their babies. And you gave them to the highest bidders.”

  “These were not mothers-of-the-year, trust me. I did my homework. These babies are much better off. They’re with parents—parents, plural. Not singular—plural. Parents who love them, and who have the means to care for them. You remember what it was like—to have parents who didn’t give a shit about you? Don’t you? Shuffled from one foster home to the next. Unwanted, unloved. I’m saving these babies from that life. From our childhood. Don’t you get it? You of all people?”

  “You’re—” Reilly began angrily before he caught himself. He didn’t know if wanted to scold her more for lumping him in with her, or for her hypocrisy. She supposedly abhorred the behavior of that pregnant girl who auctioned off her baby, yet what Dana had done was so much worse. Reilly had to stifle his instinct to point this out. Instead, his negotiation training began to kick in. He needed to find a way to get himself out of this predicament. And, if possible, try to retrieve those stolen infants.

  “I’m what?” Dana tightened her grip on the Taser.

  “You’re done. My team knows I’m here,” Reilly lied calmly. “We had a meeting that started half-an-hour ago, and, obviously, I’m not there. They’re going to be here any minute.”

  Dana put the Taser down on the sink beside her as she pulled her cell phone out of her back jeans pocket. She looked at the time on the display. “Uh, nope. I don’t buy it. I don’t think you would have shown up here thirty minutes ago if you had a meeting starting at the same time. Nice tactic, though. You almost had me.”

  Reilly scraped his bottom teeth over his upper lip, pissed off at his own stupidity. He had no idea how much time had elapsed since he got here, but it was apparently not as much as he had guessed. “You are done, though. They’re going to find me, and you’re going to go away. Why don’t you get me out of these zip ties, tell me where the missing babies are, and we’ll head down to headquarters. Nobody got hurt, Dana. We can return the babies safely to their mothers and all will be back to normal. We’ll petition the prosecutor for leniency, which—”

  “That’s not the plan,” she interrupted. “You are going to Mom’s room in the basement.”

  “That soundproof music room?” Reilly shuttered.

  “Yep.” Dana stood up. As she spoke, she turned around and grabbed a roll of duct tape off the sink. Reilly hadn’t noticed it before. “I took all her instruments out, though. It’s just the soundproof walls, now. You’re right about one thing—I am going to go away, but not to jail. Far, far away.” She stretched a six-inch piece of tape from the roll and ripped it off with the assistance of her front incisors.

  Reilly remembered the photo from Dana’s kitchen. “Venezuela,” he ventured.

  “Something like that,” she confirmed. “Now, I don’t think I can trust you to come quietly…”

  “Wait!” Reilly commanded. “What about the voice? What was that voice I heard?”

  Dana shrugged and tapped rapidly on her phone. She held it up in front of her with the display facing toward Reilly. “Hey!” the man’s voice said. Reilly quickly realized why he and the assaulted mothers had detected a tinny quality to the voice—it was a recording.

  “Who’s that?”

  “One of my clients. He’s kind of got a famous voice. When I first met him, I asked him if I could record it. As I put this plan together, I figured it would provide a good diversion if anyone ever recognized it.”

  Reilly shook his head to try to dispel his confusion. “But, why have a voice? Why say anything at all?”

  Dana shot him another disappointed glance. “Were you looking for a woman, or for a man?”

  Uncharacteristically, Reilly recognized the rhetorical nature of her question, and he slowly hung his head without responding.

  “Now,” she began as she picked the Taser back up. “Let’s shut you up and get you to the basement.”

  Reilly barely got out a brief, “No!” before she thrust her elbow into his chin, forcing his mouth shut and jamming his neck back. He tried to squirm free to no avail. She grabbed the strip of duct tape and slammed her palm over his mouth. He continued to mumble his protests until she jabbed the Taser into his side and engaged the current throughout his body once more.

  75

  Corinne stared at the text on her phone, attempting to summon up a response. What did Eleanor Branford mean? Could she have possibly had something to do with the shootings, if she knew the supposed intention of the shooter? Corinne thought she would address it head on.

  She typed out with her thumbs:

  Please tell me you have nothing to do with the shootings?

  “Ma’am, you’ll need to go back over there,” an officer told her, breaking her trance from her phone. She absorbed the scene around her, realizing that finally the authorities had decided to take control of the pandemonium. The officer shuffled her back toward the front entrance of the courthouse, where dozens of other bystanders congregated at other officers’ insistences. Corinne saw many familiar faces in her little crowd, including most everyone from inside the courtroom.

  One officer stood in front of the gathering and held a megaphone up to his mouth. “OK, folks. We need everyone’s help here, and we appreciate your cooperation. We’re going to slowly file back into the courthouse. Everyone will be individually interviewed by an officer. We’re hoping to gather as much information about what happened here today as we can. Please calmly begin forming a line to head back inside.”

  The people in the back complied by heading up the steps to the front doors when Corinne’s phone buzzed with an incoming text. Not Reilly. Eleanor Branford.

  God no!! Just bad, bad joke about how much we hate Upshall

  Corinne felt relieved. She couldn’t believe Eleanor would have concocted such a wicked undertaking, but she had learned in her career to never shut out any possibility.

  “Sir, we need you to stand up and head inside,” she heard an officer say loudly and forcefully behind her. Corinne turned around to see a man sitting on the concrete steps of the courthouse with his head in his hands. Despite the instructions to go directly inside, Corinne took a step toward the man.

  “Sir!” The officer’s tone and volume escalated. He spread his feet out beyond his shoulders to take a wider base as he put his hand on the butt of his holstered gun.

  The man slowly looked up and raised his hands above his head. He mumbled something that Corinne couldn’t hear. Apparently the officer couldn’t either. He leaned forward but didn’t remove his palm from his gun. Two other officers from the area walked briskly toward their compatriot.

  As the seated man’s hands rose above his head, Corinne took in his profile and recognized him instantly.

  “I have a gun in my pocket,” Mario Cugino said quietly but audibly.

  The first office
r pulled out his gun and took a shooter’s stance. “Keep your hands in the air!”

  “I had nothing to do with the shooting, though.” Mario was louder this time, but not much less dejected.

  Both other officers unsheathed their pistols too, pointing them at Mario. “Roll onto your stomach! Keep your hands in the air!”

  Mario did as instructed. As soon as he did, the two ancillary officers pounced, pulling his arms behind his back and handcuffing him.

  “Let’s keep moving inside please,” another officer—the one who originally redirected Corinne toward the front of the courthouse—said from behind Corinne. Scared of the near-melee on the front steps, not to mention the shooting at the back entrance, the crowd—Corinne included—quickly obeyed.

  76

  Reilly was limp. Dana had sustained the Taser against his side for what had seemed like an eternity. His muscles hadn’t fully recovered from the previous onslaught, and he briefly wondered if they would ever regain normal function.

  She held him under his armpits and dragged him down the hall from the first floor bathroom toward the stairs that led to the basement. Reilly recalled his impression of her athletic build when he first saw her in that bar last week, and he now concluded she was even stronger than he had initially thought. She kept her center of gravity low as she steadily moved him along the hardwood floor.

  Rather than fight every step, Reilly decided to preserve what little strength he could muster. Not long after Dana had mentioned the room in the basement, Reilly had devised a plan. He now hoped he could carry it out.

  She barely slowed her pace to make the first and only turn in the hallway. Reilly guessed they only had another half-dozen paces until they reached the top of the stairs. He rotated his hips, flopping his feet back and forth slightly, as a way of trying to warm up his muscles. Dana did not pause, so he took this as a sign that she hadn’t noticed.