Reckoning for the Dead

by Jordan Dane

  “We’re going inside . . . now. When you hear us, make your move.”

  “Copy that,” she said.

  Garrett used a hand signal to give the order to Kinkaid to enter the premises of Dr. Hernandez and follow his lead. The front door was the closest point to where the thermal imager had shown activity. And when Garrett found double doors to the right of the foyer, he knew Guerrero and Pérez were only steps away.

  He put his back to the nearest wall—with Kinkaid taking the other side—and listened at the door. When he heard nothing, he gave a nod. No words were necessary. Jackson reached a hand across and tested the lock.

  When Kinkaid shook his head, Garrett knew the door was locked. This time stealth wouldn’t do it. They’d have to break through clean in order to get the drop on Guerrero and his boss. Garrett gripped his assault rifle, the muscles in his body growing taut as he stared at Kinkaid.

  In seconds, this would all be over, one way or another.

  Chapter 18

  Guerrero didn’t wait for what he knew would come.

  “Keep your mouth shut,” he whispered into Dr. Hernandez’s ear. “And do as I say.”

  “What’s happening?” Pérez kept his voice low. But when he tried to sit up, he couldn’t. The man even had trouble holding the gun he’d been given.

  If they were about to be attacked, his boss would be of no use to him. Ramon was on his own. He put his arm around the doctor’s neck and squeezed, pulling him back. He kept the man’s body in front of him as he moved deeper into the room and away from the foyer door.

  “Unlock this door,” he hissed into the doctor’s ear, only loud enough for him to hear, and pointed at the door behind him. When the man did as he was told, Pérez spoke louder.

  “Something’s going on. What is it? Talk to me.”

  The bastard was talking too loud now. If someone was outside the study door, Pérez was making it easy for them to locate where they were. Ramon moved back to the center of the room, closer to his boss. His mind reeled with the scenarios racing through his head. And when he saw a dim shadow move under the threshold of the library door, he knew he’d been right.

  Someone had come in through the front and was outside the study. In seconds, he would know who they were, but that would be far too late.

  Garrett gestured to Kinkaid. On the count of three, he’d kick the door in. Jackson would cover him with his assault rifle and be first through the door, with Garrett close on his heels. They’d done the maneuver countless times, but everything hinged on how clean he hit the door and busted it open. And with the doctor inside, they had to be careful. Opening fire without a clear target might get the man killed.

  When Garrett moved into position to kick the door in, he heard gunfire.

  One shot. Two.

  He lunged for the wall and ducked for cover, talking fast into his earbud to Alexa. “Shots fired. Not us.”

  “Copy. You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Garrett whispered. “Secure your target before you assist, is that clear?”

  “I copy.”

  When Garrett was done talking to Alexa, Kinkaid nudged his head toward the door. He’d heard a noise coming from inside, and so had Garrett. He gave him the signal. They’d go on three . . . again.

  This time when Garrett kicked the door, it crashed open, and both he and Kinkaid rushed into a library with assault rifles tight at their shoulders. They aimed at the man on the sofa, and another man screamed and held up his hands. He was cowering on the floor near Pérez.

  Dr. Hernandez had been gagged. And blood ran down his cheek from his temple. Another door across the room gaped open. It led into a bedroom. Garrett kept his rifle on the doctor and the big man on the sofa while Kinkaid got a look into the bedroom. When he didn’t see anything, Jackson shrugged, and said, “Clear.”

  Garrett stepped closer to Pérez and stared down at the man. The cartel boss had his mouth open, with his dead eyes glazed over. Two bloody holes had dented his skull, and bigger exit wounds spilled brains onto the couch cushions.

  Pérez was dead.

  When Kinkaid stepped back into the room, he helped Dr. Hernandez with the gag as he stared down at Pérez.

  “Please . . . don’t shoot me. They have my wife. I only did as I was told . . . so they wouldn’t kill her. You have to believe me.”

  The doctor had stayed on his knees to beg for his life. He had no idea who they were. All he saw were their guns.

  “Where’s Ramon Guerrero . . . the other man who was here?” Garrett asked.

  Before the doctor answered, Alexa came into the room, escorting a frantic woman in a housedress and apron, who was crying.

  “Carlos, thank God you are safe.” The woman rushed to her husband’s side and fell to her knees, hugging the man who had nearly gotten her killed, all because he wanted to earn extra money working for the cartels.

  But Garrett got his answer on where Guerrero had gone when an engine started. And after they heard a loud crash of grinding metal, Kinkaid rushed to the window.

  An SUV burst through the garage door and ripped it apart, with Ramon Guerrero at the wheel. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Ramon had given himself an edge—at the expense of his boss, Pérez. And if he was going to run, he didn’t want Pérez coming after him for his betrayal. That was why he’d killed the man.

  “That’s my wife’s car. He’s stealing my car.” The doctor stared at them, like they should care. He actually looked as if he expected them to give pursuit.

  “You’ve got a dead cartel boss on your sofa. A stolen car is the least of your worries, man.”

  Garrett shook his head and fought a smile as he gave Kinkaid a sideways glance.

  “But I had nothing to do with that,” the doctor argued. “That man killed him, not me. He shot him in the head twice, in cold blood. You have to believe me.”

  “Oh, I do. But I don’t think you’ve fully grasped the situation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That”—he pointed to the dead man on the couch—“that could’ve been you and your wife.”

  The doctor looked stunned as he clung to his sobbing wife, but not half as stunned as when Garrett, Kinkaid, and Alexa turned to go.

  “Wait a minute. Are you leaving? The police . . . what do I tell the police?”

  “I’m sure you’ll think of something. Doing what you do for the cartels, I’m sure you’re good at lying to cops,” Garrett said as he walked through the foyer on his way out, with Kinkaid and Alexa beside him.

  “We’ve done as much as we can do here,” Garrett said.

  And as they left out the back of the house, he stopped before they made their exit. He grabbed Kinkaid by his good shoulder.

  “It’s over, Jackson. Pérez is dead. I know it’s not the way you wanted it to end, but there’s nothing more for us to do here.”

  It took Kinkaid a while to respond, but eventually he nodded, and Alexa did the same without saying another word. They had no choice. After Guerrero’s gunshots, any neighbors within earshot would have heard the noise and reported it. The police would be coming soon.

  Ramon Guerrero hadn’t been their target. Like the other men who had dropped their guns and run from the hacienda—not wanting to die for Pérez—Guerrero was no different. They hadn’t come for him.

  Kinkaid’s vendetta was over, and he’d done what he came to Mexico to do. He’d brought down the Pérez cartel, and their actions had cut off the head of the snake. They’d all have to settle for that, but Garrett could tell by the empty look on Kinkaid’s face that it hadn’t been enough.

  From experience, Garrett knew that revenge didn’t always come delivered with a nice tidy bow, just as Alexa had tried to tell him. And no matter how justified, vengeance wouldn’t bring the only thing that Kinkaid would’ve wanted in return—his wife and child back. Their memory would always be tainted by the violence that had ended their lives, and Jackson would have to live with that.

  Of all peop
le, he understood Kinkaid’s pain and his sacrifice. And Garrett knew the burden of guilt. He had more than his share of ghosts who would haunt him until the day he died. He only hoped that Kinkaid would eventually find peace and learn how to live with an ache that would never go away.

  Jackson Kinkaid deserved better.

  La Pointe, Wisconsin

  Jessie had spent the rest of the morning into the late afternoon locating the few people who had actually reported seeing kids at the DeSalvo place during the week of Angela’s murder. And after she’d exhausted those leads, she hit the ones she’d found in the newspaper archives—the colorful rumormongers of the town.

  While Chief Cook and Sophia Tanner had been reluctant to talk about the old murder case, the people she’d tracked down were just the opposite. They all wanted to rehash it again, and they even embellished their original stories, probably fueled by the rumors they’d helped spread after things had died down. It was human nature. Everybody wanted their fifteen minutes of fame. And it had been in her best interests to keep them talking.

  The few who had officially reported seeing the children to the police were consistent in their descriptions of a dark-haired little girl and a sandy-haired younger boy, while other townspeople ranted about DeSalvo running something illegal at her place. None of what they’d said ended up in Chief Cook’s evidence box, and she could see why. It didn’t take someone living in La Pointe to realize some folks loved having an audience. And a newcomer to town was gullible enough to listen to whatever they had to say without calling them on their bull.

  So what had turned out to be a promising start to her day had ended in frustration by late afternoon. With food to go from Lotta’s Lakeside Café on Main Street, near the ferry dock, she unlocked her motel-room door, and after she tossed stuff onto the table, she collapsed on her bed to stare at the ceiling.

  She’d hit a dead end, but she still had Sophia Tanner in her sights. And the bastard who had tailed her the other day had gotten better. Earlier, she’d felt him but never actually seen him. If she was going to catch him in the act, she had to get cagey.

  But just as she was figuring out how to do that, she got a call on her cell. She got up and grabbed her phone off the table and answered on the third ring.

  “Hey there, Harper. What’s going on? Great timing, by the way.” She ran a hand through her dark hair and paced the room.

  “Hey, Jessie. I’ve got you on speaker because I’m here with Sam,” Seth said. “Say hi, Sam.”

  “Hey, Jess.”

  “Sam has something you need to hear,” he said.

  “Shoot, Sammie.”

  Jessie chewed a hangnail on her thumb. She was so wired, waiting to hear what they had to say, that she stared down at the carpet as she paced, unable to look in any of the mirrors. She was afraid what she might see in her eyes.

  “Millstone isn’t your father, Jessie. You hear me? I got my lab guys to confirm that. We had to search through evidence, but we found what we needed to make sure. It just never got digitized for the database, but that’s fixed now.”

  Sam’s voice got muddled in her head. After her friend had said that the son of a bitch who had tortured her wasn’t her father, tears filled her eyes, and she had a hard time breathing. She sank onto her mattress when her legs felt wobbly.

  “Oh, my God. Just give me a minute.” She sucked air into her lungs like a drowning woman. And when she could finally speak, she said, “Thank you, guys. Not knowing has been killing me. That’s good news.”

  “Yeah, it is. Ruling that bastard out means the odds of your having a brother are pretty good, Jessie.” Seth came onto the line and told her what he’d found out. “You’d asked me to look for names and pictures of any boys Millstone might have abducted or killed. Well, I didn’t find any. There were names like Cameron and Jamie that I had to chase down, but those were girls.”

  “Guess that’s another good thing,” Jessie said. “It means that my brother didn’t end up with that scumbag.”

  “Yeah. I thought that was good news, too, but after I went over my dad’s file for the third time, it got me thinking that the copy I had was something Dad had made when he left the force. Whatever I had wasn’t what Sam would have if anything got updated after Max retired.”

  “Oh, my God. I never thought of that, Seth. I just figured after Millstone was killed, the case was done.”

  “And that would’ve been possible if the case had been a single homicide, Jessie.” This time, it was Sam’s voice that broke in. “But with the Millstone case being high-profile, other investigators contributed to the evidence after Seth’s father quit the force. And, of course, the news media chased down leads on who Millstone was.”

  “So the two of you decided to compare notes and look through the updated evidence Sam had? Is that what I’m hearing?”

  “Yeah,” they said in unison.

  “Gosh, I love you guys.” Jessie couldn’t help it. Even with all the runaround she’d gotten in La Pointe, it was nice to know she had real friends watching her back. “So talk to me. What’d you find out? I’m assuming you didn’t call just to say hello.”

  When she only heard silence on the phone, Jessie couldn’t sit anymore. She got off the mattress and paced the floor again. If they were both stalling, she figured it was for good reason.

  “Spill it, guys. You’re making me nervous.”

  “Someone had done a more thorough background check on Millstone after he’d been killed. I got this from other detectives who were around back then, working the case. They told me that folks came forward after the news broke. A lot of the calls were phony leads CPD had to chase. It took time to wade through it all, but in the evidence downtown at headquarters, we found a reference to Millstone that we thought you should know. You ready to hear it?”

  Jessie didn’t answer at first. She took in a deep breath and felt a wave of nausea. She had blocked out so much of that time period from her mind. As a kid, all she wanted to do was be left alone. And for her own sake, the foster-care folks had purposefully kept her isolated from the headline news during that time.

  And after she’d gotten older, she had deliberately avoided anything having to do with Millstone, as if it had never happened. She still felt that way, but now she had to know how all this connected to any link she might still have to family.

  “Go ahead. I’m ready. Tell me what you found out.”

  An hour later

  After the lengthy call from Sam and Harper, Jessie had a hard time controlling her anger. She tossed her dinner without eating it. And her mind wrestled with the idea of what her next move should be, but all she had on her mind was confronting Chief Cook once and for all.

  How much of what Sam and Seth had told her did Cook already know? And why had he made contact with her, only to stonewall her once she got to La Pointe? She knew he’d deliberately lied about there being two DNA samples tested by his state crime lab. Sam had discovered that. Had he also lied about the Tanner interview? She still had missing pieces to the puzzle, but she had one last shot at finding out the truth.

  Jessie grabbed her rental-car keys, checked her Colt Python, and put it back in the holster she carried at her waist under her windbreaker. By the time she got outside, the sun had just drifted below the horizon. It would be dark soon.

  When she pulled out of the motel parking lot, she might’ve missed the headlights coming on as she turned toward the police station, but with her hinky radar switched to hyperdrive, she hadn’t missed those headlights at all. She’d picked up a tail again. Someone had been following her since she got to the island, and that old hinky vibe had jump-started a whole new surge of adrenaline. With all that was going on, she’d had enough.

  As she drove the speed limit, careful not to spook the sneaky bastard, she made a call on her cell.

  “This is Jessie Beckett,” she said as she looked in her rearview mirror. It was too dark to see a face, but a man was driving the truck that followed her.

/>   “Where are you, Chief Cook?”

  “None of your business. You still in town, Ms. Beckett?”

  “I thought you’d know that . . . since this is your town, Tobias.” Before he found a new way to insult her, she didn’t give him a chance. “I have a pretty good idea who killed Angela DeSalvo. And if you have any curiosity at all, you’ll meet me in thirty minutes.”

  She eyed the mirror one more time as she made a turn, with the truck still with her and not far behind.

  “Where?”

  When she told him, the chief schooled her in how to cuss, but he didn’t say no.

  “I’ll be there in thirty. And you better be on the level, or I’m locking you up and throwing away the key.”

  With a smile on her face, Jessie ended the call without saying anything more. And when she shifted her gaze to the rearview mirror, the truck was still with her.

  If she was going to meet the chief in thirty minutes, she had to move quick.

  Thirty minutes later

  Right on time, Chief Cook pulled his squad car into Sophia Tanner’s driveway. Jessie had parked on the road, not wanting to frighten the woman. Living alone on the island couldn’t be easy for a woman. When the chief saw Jessie, he shut his patrol-car door and walked over to where she stood.

  “Thought you’d be inside, scaring that poor woman. Are you blowing smoke . . . or do you really know who killed Angela DeSalvo?”

  “I have a pretty good idea, but before we go inside, I’ve got a question for you.”

  The chief didn’t bother to give her the go-ahead. He crossed his arms and cocked his head, waiting for the bullshit to flow, like he was expecting it to. And Jessie sure hoped she wouldn’t disappoint him.

  She stepped back toward her sedan, twirling her car keys on her finger. “Why did you have someone following me ever since I got to the island? What was that about?”

  “Following you? What are you talking about?”