by Jonas Saul
The steel tip of a long-barreled gun edged along Kierian’s shoulder and lightly touched the bottom of his jaw. The same happened to Clint.
Kierian’s face relaxed, his expression one of failure.
The man to Sarah’s right spoke first. “Drop your weapons, ese. Then move into the alley. We’re only here to talk.”
“You know as well as I do that we will not give up our guns,” Kierian said. “The first wrong move by your people, I shoot you first.”
“Then we will both die.” The man spat on the pavement and moved closer. “You think I care?” He stepped up to Kierian’s weapon and placed his chest on the tip, his face a chunk of solid stone. “You think a member of the Angels of Violence is scared away by a threat of violence?” He leaned in closer. “You don’t know who we are, do you?”
Sarah stepped back. There were too many to fight. Aaron had taught her how to fight three, four and even five men at once, but not fourteen. They were all lean, strong, tattooed and angry. None of them were dressed for the weather.
“Kill me,” the man said, “and my men will pump every bullet they’ve got in your face. Then I will have those four,” he paused as the four in the alley moved out into the streetlight’s glow, each carrying a machete, “tear your arms and legs off and feed them to you.” He tilted his head. “Then we find out where you live, pig, and do the same to your family.”
“Okay, take it easy,” Kierian said without dropping his weapon. “We are Federal Agents—”
“Who are a long way from home. Try to arrest me,” the man said, holding his hands up together as if inviting handcuffs. “Now stop wasting time and give me your weapons.”
The steel against Kierian’s jaw jabbed in harder, pushing his head sideways.
Kierian raised his weapon and clicked the safety on. Clint did the same.
The man took each weapon and stepped back. “Take them in the alley to talk.”
Arms grabbed Sarah and dragged her backwards so fast she couldn’t get a foothold. Kierian and Clint each had three men on them. Ten feet into the alley where it was only lit by a small light from behind what appeared to be a restaurant, Clint and Kierian were knocked off their feet. They fell hard to the cold cement of the alley.
“Hurt them,” the leader ordered.
“No,” Sarah said. “What is this all about? You got me. What do you want?”
Their leader turned to her and walked over in three long strides. Two men still held her arms.
“Shut up, bitch,” he said quietly. In the darkened alley she didn’t see his hand coming until it was too late. It connected with the side of her face so hard, the man on her right almost lost his grip when she twisted from the hit. The sting was instant, the anger faster.
“You motherfu—”
Another open-palmed slap struck the words out of her mouth. She tasted blood. Her eyes swam.
“One more word out of your pussy mouth and the pain you feel will be my pleasure.”
Sarah hung suspended by her arms, collecting herself and her thoughts. It would do no good to be held up by a man on each arm and beaten. With every hit, her chance of escape dwindled.
The sound of flesh being kicked filled the alley. She watched as four men stomped on each FBI agent with their boots. Both men grunted and groaned and rolled into a ball, but that didn’t matter. The gang members kicked at their lower backs, their groin, faces and heads.
“You’re going to kill them,” Sarah pleaded.
The man’s hand came back too fast again. She tried to duck out of the way but didn’t make it. His fingers whipped across her cheeks, his nails cutting into her.
The stomping in front of her stopped. One of the men with a machete walked up to Clint. He was unconscious, bleeding from so many places his face was a mask of red.
“The FBI in Canada, eh?” one of the men with the machetes said. “Yeah, right. Fuckin’ poser.” He drew the machete along the front of Clint’s neck, slicing so deep, Clint’s head rolled back as his body spasmed and jerked.
“Noooo!” Sarah yelled. She couldn’t believe what she was watching. “You can’t—what are you doing?” she screamed, struggling against the arms that held her.
He ignored her outburst as he stepped up to Kierian who was also unconscious and covered in blood.
“Hey, what’s going on?” someone asked from the mouth of the alley. A flashlight lit them up. “What are you doing?”
“Go,” the leader ordered. “Scramble.”
“Police, freeze. Get back here.”
Sarah was lifted off the ground and carried to the end of the alley as a tear for Clint slipped down her cheek. Shock settled over her system.
Then they were around the corner and onto a new street. A van door slid open and Sarah was airborne. She landed inside the van hard and twisted her wrist.
She spun around and got on all fours, ready to dive out of the open door, but men jumped in, blocking her way. The door slammed shut and the van took off. A boot to the stomach knocked her against the wall.
The van was going faster now.
Another boot came down and blocked the light, connecting with her forehead.
A blessed unconsciousness took over.
Chapter 25
His patience run thin, Aaron left his apartment and headed to the police station where Alan Lyson worked. Sarah had called and said she would be home. Russell had called and warned him. Someone else had called, but after asking for Sarah had hung up.
Something bigger than what was in Vivian’s messages was happening and Aaron had a bad vibe that Sarah was in serious trouble and needed his help.
Half an hour later, a few blocks from the station, he came upon a cordoned off area by an alleyway. Lights flashed from the tops of emergency vehicles lighting the night up in multi-colored strobes, reflecting off the glass of nearby buildings.
He drew closer and mixed in with the small crowd braving the cold to watch the action beyond the police tape.
“What’s going on?” he asked the man to his right. “Did you see anything?”
“Not sure. Just got here myself, but I heard a cop might have been killed. Someone came out of that alley on a stretcher, their face covered in a blanket.”
Stones weighed down Aaron’s stomach. “Who could do such a thing?”
“I know,” the man said. “City’s gone to shit.”
Aaron worked himself around the crowd and the taped-off area and continued down the sidewalk to the police building.
Sarah had better not been a part of that or there’ll be shit to pay.
He entered the station and walked up to the front desk.
“Help you?” a female clerk asked.
“I’m here to speak with Detective Lyson.”
“I’ll ring him.” The woman picked up a phone and punched a few buttons. She held the phone away and said, “Name?”
“Aaron Stevens. He’ll know me.”
The woman whispered into the phone and then set it down. Aaron raised his eyebrows waiting for a response.
“He’ll be down in a moment. You can wait over there.” She gestured to a row of chairs.
Aaron left the counter but didn’t sit. He was too anxious, too stirred up. Maybe he needed to put a call into his friends and fellow teachers at the dojo, Daniel, Alex, and Benjamin. The foursome could solve whatever was going on like they did in Greece when Clive Baron had killed Aaron’s sister.
He was done with assholes taking the women he cared about from him. Not Sarah. This was not happening again.
“Aaron,” a male voice spoke softly behind him.
He spun around and looked into the eyes of Alan Lyson. He lowered his head but kept his eyes on Lyson. “What’s happening? Tell me what you know.”
“Come to my office.”
On the stairs, Lyson said, “I read the file on you before I came to visit your apartment the other night.”
“Interesting reading?” Aaron asked.
“Very. What
I found interesting was your abilities and your dogged determination to deal with who had hurt your sister.”
“That hasn’t diminished. I will find Sarah.”
They reached the second landing and Lyson turned for the hall.
“Of that,” he said, “I have little doubt. Is everyone attached to Sarah such vigilantes?”
Aaron ignored the question.
In Lyson’s office, a man was sitting on a couch against the back wall.
“That’s Justin,” Lyson said. “He’s a member of the task force set up to locate the man I asked Sarah to help us find.”
Aaron nodded at Justin, then turned to Lyson. “How’s that going?”
“We can’t talk police business with a member of the public.”
Aaron frowned. “Then why bring me to your office to update me and then say nothing?”
“I didn’t say update.”
Aaron looked at Justin. He could have both men on the floor inside of six seconds. One would be unconscious and the other begging to tell him what was going on. But he didn’t want to spend the next ten years in prison. Or upset Sarah.
“Look,” Aaron said in a calm voice. “Maybe I can help. Bring me in on this.”
“How could you help?” Lyson asked.
It began to feel that that was exactly what Lyson had been waiting for.
“I want something in return,” Aaron said.
“What’s that?” Lyson crossed his arms and waited.
“I want a ride-along.”
“A ride-along?” Lyson smiled. “What are we talking about here?”
“I offer what I know, you keep me up to date on what’s happening with Sarah. She’s all I’ve got. You don’t want me on the street with my guys doing this on our own. We’ve had too much of that. Deal?”
Lyson rubbed the bottom of his chin in an exaggerated display of contemplation. He looked like he was enjoying this. Then it clicked. When Lyson came to his apartment and asked for help, he got kicked out.
Now Aaron needed him. The difference here was that Lyson actually did need Aaron.
“Goodbye,” Aaron said without waiting for a response. He turned for the door, walked across the small office and grabbed the handle.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
“You have a deal.”
He turned around. “Full disclosure. I want everything. In exchange, I’m yours. Everything I know about Sarah’s ability. Deal?”
“Deal.” Lyson nodded.
Justin nodded as well.
“Tell me,” Aaron said as he walked back in front of Lyson’s desk. “What’s going on?”
“I guess I could say it’s not going well.”
“Why do you guess?”
Lyson sat behind his desk. Aaron remained standing, his hands clasped together in front of him, legs spread.
“What I’m about to tell you isn’t public knowledge. I’m willing to go out on a limb and let you in on what’s happening. But it doesn’t leave this room. Clear?”
“Clear.”
“Two intended victims of The Leap Year Killer were freed earlier tonight.”
“Did Sarah have anything to do this?”
Lyson shook his head. “No. They were discovered in a cage by a worker from a building across the street.”
“Where’s Sarah?”
“We don’t know.” Lyson looked at Justin on the couch. “We didn’t fuck up. It has nothing to do with us.”
“What do you mean?” Aaron asked, trying hard to keep his temper in check.
“The FBI stormed in here and left with her hours ago. My understanding is that they went to the Toronto airport.”
“The airport?” he almost shouted.
“There was an arrest, a man Sarah and the FBI stopped—”
“The luring thing. Yeah, I know about that. He tried to steal a thirteen-year-old girl.”
Another exchange of looks between the task force members. Aaron turned to address Justin. “I read the notes Vivian gave Sarah. She shared them with me.”
Lyson leaned forward and rested his forearms on his large desk calendar. “All of them?”
Aaron nodded. “Most of it.”
“Tell us what Vivian has been saying?”
“I only saw the massage parlor thing and then the airport one. There was one more note, but I didn’t see all of it. There was an address and a time to be there.” He thought for a second. “Something about keeping the building clear of all police personnel, too.”
“You remember a lot for a note you didn’t see much of.”
“I glanced at it, saw the address, the date, and then a bunch of text. The words police and building clear stood out, but I didn’t read it.”
“Can you remember the specific address or the date?” Lyson asked.
“Leap day.”
“What did the address have to do with that date?”
“Tell me where Sarah is?” Aaron countered.
“We don’t know,” Lyson said as he leaned back in his chair. “I already told you that.”
Aaron unzipped his jacket as the heat in the office overcame him. “What happened a block from here?”
“Two FBI agents were attacked.”
“They okay?”
“One of them is in the hospital. The other …” he shook his head. “Fucking tragedy.”
“Wouldn’t happen to be the same two FBI guys from last night, would it? The same two that took Sarah to the airport?” He was putting it together and every which way it shaped up, things did not look good for Sarah.
Lyson’s grim face looked away. “Unfortunately.”
“And that’s why you don’t know where she is?”
Lyson nodded.
“Why do I have to drag this out of you? Fuck.” He turned around and paced the floor to the door and back. “What are the two victims you recovered saying?”
“Nothing. They can’t talk.”
Aaron frowned and turned his head sideways. “More dragging shit out of you? So tell me, why can’t they talk?”
“The killer removed their tongues.”
“What? And you guys let Sarah deal with hardened criminals like that?”
Lyson stood from his chair. “Let’s get one thing straight. We don’t let Sarah do anything. She does what she wants. The only help we ask is if she can do a message thing and tell us something we don’t know.”
“Well, your little helper sounds helpless right now.”
“The blame is not in this office—”
The phone on his desk rang. Lyson picked it up. “I thought I said I didn’t want to be disturbed.” A pause, then his voice softened. “Right, okay, put her through.”
He clicked speaker phone.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice.
“Maria, you’re on speaker with Justin and Aaron Stevens.”
“Aaron?”
“You remember Aaron, Sarah’s guy? He might be able to help. He has an address he’s trying to remember. Maybe something you say will help him.”
“I just finished at the crisis center.”
“And?”
“That woman we were looking into, Jennifer is pretty shaken up.”
“Why’s that? I know her. She’s been there a long time, like maybe a decade or longer. Good girl.”
“Do you know who her brother is?”
“No idea. Didn’t even know she had a brother.”
“His name is Martin Rankin, the medical examiner working this Leap Year Killer case.”
“What? Really?” Lyson’s eyes bulged a little.
“She can’t get a hold of him.”
“So?”
“One of the women recovered in the cage had visited Jennifer last week.”
“And?”
Aaron stepped closer to the desk to listen better, nervous for Sarah because she had just gone to the crisis center and spoke to a woman named Jennifer.
“When I told Jennifer the names of the other six victims and showed
her their pictures, she was the only employee who has been there long enough to know them all. Sometimes she complains about her job to her brother even though case files are confidential.”